Isaac Newton's Girl
by Stargazer-Dreamcatcher01
Summary: "You don't scare me, Isaac Newton." He smiled "Oh, you scare me, Lil. You buggin' scare me" This is the story of the children of the Maze. From WICKED's choice to the Cure and their 'Ever After' through the eyes of a fiery Group B girl, who -despite her effort- falls hard for a infected Glader. Can the teens stay alive and pull back their lost memories before he loses his mind?
1. Chapter 1

_**Isaac Newton's Girl**_

**The world of Maze Runner and all the characters except Lilianne and Karly belong to **_**James Dashner.**_

**Okay, firstly – Thank you for clicking on my fanfiction, reader – I really hope you enjoy it :D**

**Warnings – Newt/OC and mentions of Newt's depression/attempted suicide in later chapters – But most of the story is pretty cheerful!**

**I always wanted to know what happened to WICKED's subjects before they went into the trials and what they were like as new recruits – and after them as well – so I made it up. I've had this story in my head pretty much since I finished the first book and am still working on most of the chapters. I would love to hear what you think! **

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><p><strong>Chapter 1<strong>** –** _**The Beginning of the Beginning. - 14 years old**_

"SWEETHEART!" Mom's shout pierced my safe duvet-cocoon world, ringing through the house and summoning me into a reluctant 8 AM reality, "Get up, honey! There's someone here to talk to you!"

8 AM – June 28th. When I woke up that morning, I'd expected it to be just like any other day: Breakfast, studying, painting, lunch, reading, bath, bed – and a million other ways to endure the ridiculous rule of constant house arrest. (Mom wouldn't let me out then – the Flare had terrified all the 'posh lot' into hiding) If I was lucky, my cousin Ruby might come round for ten minutes before Mom shooed her out and sterilized everything she'd touched. Even since Uncle Dan went crazy, she'd become obsessive about me and hygiene - that always seemed like shutting the door after the horse had bolted, but I couldn't blame her. She was afraid. We all were. But, anyway, when I woke up that morning, I had no idea that one day and the people waiting in it would turn my life, completely, madly and – in _his_ case – unbelievably upside down.

Opening my eyes blearily, I dragged myself from my cocoon and into the huge window seat that my Dad had built when I was six. It was my favourite escape place – shaped like a crescent moon - and I had sat in it for so long over the eight years that the pink velvet of the seat was tattered and shiny in the centre. I stood up on the seat, hooking my fingers into the grooves I'd worn in the window-frame and looked out across the city – not that you could really call it that anymore. The Flare had pushed almost everyone in this part of town into their homes and those who did go out wore masks across their faces and took huge detours to avoid passing within three metres of another human being, practically running to the next building in the street. _Like that's going to do anything, _I thought._ It's an inevitable_. I'd decided that human beings in general react badly to inevitables. They see them, know in the backs of their heads what they are, but instead of enjoying the time they have before inevitability descends, they run around desperately trying to stop it and end up wasting all their time with fear and struggling. And the people here were no different. Of course, there are always that gang of boys who play at being 'rebels', kicking a football around the concrete and yelling at the people in the houses. I could see them from my windowsill, aiming shots at each other's heads and lighting up cigarettes they'd bartered off some other idiot who wanted to blacken his lungs. One of them met my eyes from three floors down and made some comment that I couldn't hear to his friends. The loudest one, Josh Forster-Jones (bane of his mother's life), shouted up to the window:

"You ogling us again Grasshopper Girl?! Come down – we've got Marlboro Lights!"

I winced at the nickname and dragged my fingers through my hair to flatten it before levering open the huge glass pane and leaning out.

"In your dreams FJ! I hope you choke on them!" I yelled with a grin – his mom was friends with my mom. We practically grew up in the same stroller – I wasn't afraid of him. But before he could reply, I heard a panicked gasp and Mom screeched up the stairs,

"DARLING! CLOSE THAT WINDOW NOW! IT'S AIRBORNE! COME DOWN!" I sighed and slammed it shut. _We're three floors up! _I thought irritably but ignored this and called "Sorry Mom! Coming!"

I grabbed my Zara jeans, a vest top and my Converse boots, pulled them on and grabbed a hairbrush off the dresser and looked at myself. My chestnut-coloured hair was sticking up on both sides of my head, prompting Josh's taunt. Grasshopper was a name Dad had always called me after I found one by the banks of the lake and became obsessed with the things. For the whole summer, everything I wore was green and yellow – at least until school started and I became a laughing-stock, so I dropped it. Unfortunately the name stuck. I fixed my hair, washed, and then ran down the three creaky flights to the kitchen before skidding to an abrupt halt at the sight.

Mom was there as usual with a strained smile on her worn face, but standing next to her was a tall man wearing a black suit and a serious expression. He held a black briefcase in one hand with the letters W.I.C.K.E.D stamped across it in red letters edges in gold. For a second I was confused but then I laughed – it was only a week after my birthday – could this be some crazy sing-a-gram? No-one who actually wanted to be taken seriously would call their company WICKED, stamp it across a briefcase and edge it in red – he seemed more like some kind of a clown! But then the clown caught me staring and gave me a tight-lipped smile that didn't reach his eyes - which didn't really fit my theory - before nodding to Mom, who suddenly jerked into action.

"Honey, this is Mr Black from the World In Catastrophe: Killzone Experiment Department." She smiled at me too, almost as if she was trying to reassure me. Okay, not a sing-a gram then. And a Killzone Department – what? Why didn't I feel reassured?

"He's here to talk to us about… you." Briefcase man nodded (again) and gestured towards the antique chairs in the corner of the room.

"Sit down please. I need you to take this very seriously." When I had established that this wasn't a prank, and this was our first out-of-town visitor for a year I'd become more than a little freaked out – so I was somewhat relieved that the guy could do something other than nod. I did so silently, pulling a cushion onto my lap and looked at Mr Black. _Why is he looking at me like my life depends on it? _He met my eyes and spread his hands wide.

"Look, I'm not going to beat around the bush here – there isn't an easy way to say this. You know about the Flare I assume. I hope so or perhaps you are not as intelligent as I was led to believe." I nodded, slightly offended. Who didn't know about the disease that was destroying the world as we know it? I hadn't seen it though. Not properly. Mom had kept me about as far away from Uncle Dan as was humanly possible – and he was on the Bliss anyway. But the laughter I'd heard still haunted my dreams.

"The fact is, it's stealing the identities of thousands every single day. Every attempt at quarantine or containment is failing. No matter what we build it always gets past it. The only treatment available is the Bliss, which is exceedingly costly to produce and does nothing to cure the disease."

"I know." I told him. Everybody knew. _But other than to tell me that I'll die horribly, why's he talking to me?_

"Good. But here's the thing, kid. We need a cure or the whole human race will die. But we have nothing to base it on. Cranks themselves are too volatile – the Flare Effect varies too much for any result to be useful. However, we have realised that a small group of people – mainly under twenty – have a certain quality that could benefit our research and help us find a cure. People like this – like you- seem to find it much harder to contract the Flare. Usually, it seems to be people with a high intelligence level – though not always."

Wait, what? There was a way to try and prevent this? Why was this WICKED hiding it? My thoughts flickered to Uncle Dan, my Gran, the girl that Ruby would eventually be.

"Why not tell everyone? People are _dying_! You _need_ to tell them!" Mom raised her hand at my outburst but Mr Black just looked sad and said:

"If only we could. But we cannot work out what makes you kids the way you are. That's why we need your help. You will be placed into training for a number of – harmless – tests to try and study your mental patterns. With WICKED, I assure you, you are safe. However, there are those on the outside that hate your kind. Therefore you must leave your home behind, assume a new identity and come with us."

I stared at him wordlessly, trying to take it in. Was he mad? He expects me to leave my Mom her _alone_ and follow him into some crackpot experiment like a rabbit in a shampoo lab? And then has the nerve to tell me it's for my own good? Was Mom actually _buying_ this? I placed the cushion back onto the arm of the chair and met his steel grey eyes.

"Thank you Mr Black, but I can't do that. My Mother needs me here - she hasn't got anyone else. My Dad disappeared four years ago. I'm sorry for wasting your time."

I watched Mom share a guilty look with Mr Black and cast her eyes to the floor, avoiding my gaze.

"It's a non-negotiable situation, kid. Your mother already signed you over. You belong to the organization now. Your suitcase is by the door, packed." Okay this had to be a joke. It _had_ to be – or maybe I'm still asleep – whatever twisted life reality had become in the last decade, it couldn't be this! I felt like I'd been punched in the gut. The edges of my vision clouded and the room seemed to rock slightly with the betrayal. Signed me over. An object to be bought and sold. I cast a desperate, accusing look at Mom but then the man was holding out my leather coat and was speaking again, pushing a small piece of white plastic about the size of a credit card across the table.

"This is your identification. Under _no_ _circumstances_ let yourself be caught without it."

I picked it up off the table before looking at it in confusion:

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><p>NAME: Lilianne Pasteur<p>

D.O.B: 03/11/000 (AGE: 14)

GENDER: Female

SUBJECT: B5

PROPERTY OF WICKED

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><p>Other than the obvious stuff – my age and gender – I didn't recognise anything on that card.<p>

"Lilianne Pasteur?" I asked. "But that's not my name." Mr Black rolled his eyes.

"They said you were intelligent. You must leave your identity behind or you will find yourself a target for Cranks. The faster you accept your name the easier it will be. And we must leave now Miss Pasteur."

I'm going to tell you now – I'm not a violent person. In a fight, rather than actually being in it, I'm more likely to be the one on the edge screaming "OH MY GOSH, STOP! STOP!" But in that second the last half hour, Mom's guilty glances, the lying card, Black's patronising pity, built up in a huge wave and crashed over my head and something snapped. I spun on my heel, dodging past Mom before she could react and bolting for the stairs, pulling the fruit basket off the nearby table in my wake and yelling over my shoulder:

"I'M NOBODY'S PROPERTY!"

The tears that blinded me as I stumbled back up the three flights surprised me – I didn't cry. Never. I'd spent the last three years of my life wishing and wishing I could be free, that someone would take me away to have an adventure, like the people in my stories – so why the heck was I _crying? _Why did I _care? _Angry with myself, Mr Black, my Mom and probably the whole world in general, I flung myself into my window seat, climbing up to the highest section of it and perching there, determined to show the emptiness of the room that, however uncomfortable it was, I _could_ sit there. For a while, I had a complete moment of weakness and curled up in a ball, crying that sort of crying that doesn't make a whole lot of sense – the way you do without knowing what else to do- crying that's fiercer than any tears with actual reason. But then something fluttered on the edge of my vision and I looked up. A piece of paper was caught in the corner of my window and when I pulled myself to it to look more closely, I saw that it was a prescription. A Bliss prescription to be precise, the thousand dollar figure still visible on the label. The things Mr Black had said suddenly slid into my mind:

"_We need your help… thousands of lives… find a cure… no-one else" _

I looked back to the prescription. It was a local one. _Whose is that_? I wondered, _Who else was trying to dodge death?_ I probably knew them. My area wasn't all that big – probably someone who'd come to all the school events, been to all the dances and balls, the charity actions, who'd put in five dollars to buy me a present when my Dad left – someone who'd have their life stolen. Could I stop that? Not alone. I couldn't play a lead role. But how could I ever look out of my window again without seeing the paper? How could I turn on the T.V without hearing the laughter or close my eyes without seeing their scarred faces – knowing that I had a chance to help and I refused? And why had I? Because I was frightened. But I bet I wasn't half as frightened as the owner of that slip.

Slowly, I opened the window and unhooked the sheet with my fingertips and stuffed it into my pocket, before clambering down from the seat and walking to my door. I looked back and took in the bright colours and the thousands of memories that filled the room, good and bad – it almost crippled me for a second, but I'd made my decision. And though I had no suspicion of what my future would be, I knew in my heart I'd never come back.

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><p>I stepped back in, taking the offered coat in a daze, trying hard to mask the devastation on my face with some of the determination I'd felt upstairs. Keeping my chin up, I moved towards my Mom to hug her. She held out her arms to me but the man grabbed my shoulder.<p>

"No goodbyes. It makes it so much harder to leave. Besides, we have been here far too long already. It will not be long until someone gets a grip on our location – and I have a very tight schedule."

I forced back the furious tears choking my throat. "What happens then? If you get found?"

"Believe me kid, you've got to hope you never find out." Black pulled open our front door and a gust of air rushed in, immediately causing a flicker of panic to cross Mom's face and she grabbed the nearest towel and pressed it across her mouth. My eyes flickered to the clock on the wall -9 AM- how had everything gone so wrong in one lousy hour? What kind of sick dream was this?

"Come _on_, Lilianne."

At the sound of the ridiculous, alien name, I ripped my shoulder out of his grip and threw myself into Mom's arms, holding her tightly. She hugged me back and I could see the tears sparkling in her tawny-gold eyes.

"Why?" I whispered. For the first time that morning, she looked me in the eyes.

"I love you, darling. I always will. Your Dad loved you too, I know he did. But I'm not alright. I haven't been for a long time – I watched my brother disappear. If you stay here, you're not safe – I can't let you watch what I have, can't let you watch _me_. They can keep you safe, honey – I can't." Her voice broke and she touched her forehead to mine. "I love you."

I didn't know what to say. There was nothing _to_ say. Mr Black suddenly cleared his throat and sighed, tapping his watch.

"Schedule, ladies…" At that moment, any question vanished and I hated him.

"I love you too Mom" I whispered as I spun on my heel, grabbing my suitcase and walked out of my door ahead of Black - out of the world of security I'd built around myself and into a great unknown…

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><p><strong>Whoo – I finally got the chapter up! My best friend has bugged me to finish it for months! <strong>** Okay – I know there were no Canon characters in that chapter! There will be some soon - chapter Three really when Lily runs into the **_**original**_** Ivy Trio with little nine – year – old Winston **** So, what do you all think of her? R+R! **

**Star ** x**


	2. Chapter 2 - The Train

_**I do not own TMR - The world/characters/central plot of Maze Runner belongs to James Dashner!**_

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><p><em><strong>Chapter 2 – The Train – 10:55 AM<strong>_

"This is it," After a long journey in a shiny Jaguar, made longer by my stony silence and Black's vain attempts to engage me in conversation, we stepped out onto what had once been a bustling train platform. I could still see scraps of ancient posters clinging stubbornly onto billboards and old tickets stubs wedged into cracks in the weakening floorboards.

"It's significantly worse for wear, Miss Pasteur, but will serve its purpose. The train arrives in –"

Mr Black checked the expensive Rolex strapped to his thin wrist.

"Precisely five minutes."

"What train?"

"The one with the other subjects in, of course."

He gave me a withering look, like: _Why did I get saddled with this one? _ Other subjects?I ignored his tone and found myself wondering about these other people, signed away by their families to be tested like lab rats. Did they know anything? Could I trust them? I'm gonna say this now – I'm not good with people. Seven years of protectiveness has made me sort of an introvert and being stuck on a train with a hundred other "highly-intelligent" people could possibly be my worst nightmare.

There were several minutes of awkward silence with only the occasional chirp of a bird or the creak of the overhead lines to break it. I turned the unfamiliar white card over in my hands, contemplating how much pressure I'd have to apply to snap the thing in half.

In the end Mr Black was right though. At exactly 11 o'clock, a squealing noise was heard and my new future began to creak towards us in the form of a battered metallic-grey monster. Yep- that sounds about my luck. We got up from the cheese-grater chairs we'd sat in and stepped towards it as it ground to a stop in front of us. I could already hear the deafening noise of people through the rusted door and felt a flicker of panic rip through my chest. _This is it, _I thought, _don't mess it up._

As the doors creaked open, Mr Black placed a hand on my shoulder and said with a concerned expression:

"Be careful Miss Pasteur. You are one of the wealthier subjects. Some of them are not quite as… uh… eloquent as you are." Great. Reassuring. But then what seemed to be becoming just about typical.

I nodded, acknowledging the warning and reached up, grabbing the yellow bar on the inside of the train and swinging myself in, hearing the train groan in protest under my feet. Mr Black raised his hand in farewell but I ignored him and pushed the heavy doors closed. I decided this was better than the two fingers and showing him just how _eloquent_ I could be.

In front of me was a large door with a small window and 'Company C' on a wooden plaque. At least, that's what I think it said. It actually read 'C m p ny C' in cracked black varnish. I could hear someone yelling inside – or maybe several people- I wasn't sure, someone reasonably young was emitting a high-pitched wailing noise that no-one was really doing anything about. It was that noise that gave me the courage, I think. That kid sounded like I felt. I took a deep breath along with the train, wheezing as it rattled forwards and I pushed open the door.

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><p><em><strong>3 more sleeps to go! <strong>_

_**Thank you to softball007, theevilsquiddancer, Datgirl45, Guest for your fabulous reviews and to FireOfInspiraton, TweetyGhost, , Daiseymaemari-25, wolfmoon10 for follows/favourites – I love you all! – You have no idea how happy you made me!**_

_**I just realised that ch 1 was the mother of long chapters and ch2 was super short - Chapter 3 is coming up tomorrow! (Here come the canon characters!**__** - are you excited?)**_

_**Star * xx**_


	3. Chapter 3 - Backstreet Boy

_**I do not own TMR - The world/characters/central plot of Maze Runner belongs to James Dashner!**_

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><p><span><em><strong>Chapter 3 – Backstreet Boy<strong>_

In the end, my angst wasn't really worth it. A couple of people glanced in my direction, but the majority carried on with whatever randomness they'd busied themselves with. I say randomness – chaos is probably a better word.

An Asian boy, about my age, was hanging upside down from a ceiling rail that was creaking ominously whilst a blonde girl with dip-dyed hair was yelling at him to get off '_before you bring the freaking roof down and kill us all!'. _Some others were playing a noisy game of Snap in the corner, screeching at the tops of their voices, a shady-looking figure was scratching nasty graffiti on the windows that would have made Mom's eyes burn. Honestly, for a small carriage, there were people in pretty much every position imaginable – sprawled on the floor, sitting, hanging, standing, sleeping, screaming – you name it, there was somebody doing it.

For a long second, I just stared into the carriage looking at the mayhem but a sudden choked wail startled me out of my trance. My eyes swivelled to one corner of the battered tin can that housed a long, splintering bench with four pierced teenagers lounging on it. One of them glared at a small, shivering bundle on the end of the bench before aiming a plastic bottle at it.

"God, kid – shut the hell up before I come over there and shut your trap myself!"

The plastic bottle found its target and the kid in the blankets squealed, the wailing dying down to a muffled sniffling. A flare of irritation flashed through me as I looked at the grimy older boy – yeah, as far as I could tell, this sucked, but we were all in the same sucky boat – taking it out on a sobbing child was low.

"Leave him alone!" I demanded, "What's he done to you?"

The boy looked up, eyebrows raised, evidently surprised that I'd dared to question him. He leered at me, brushing his greasy hair from his forehead, his eyes sweeping me up and down, and I took a step backwards warily.

"What's he done?! He's driving nails into our skulls and taking up a mile of space too –Why should I, Rich Girl?"

The boy stood up then, towering over me, his day-old breath making my head spin and I suddenly lost all ability to speak.

"Because…because..." I stammered, searching my mind for a scathing comeback, "Because it's not very nice, is it?"

_Wow Lilianne. Just __wow__. _I should be a politician. The jerk and his cronies immediately started cackling and flipping me off – "_Daddy couldn't buy you an IQ, sugar?" _ I was shrinking down next to the bundle in the corner, wishing I could sink into the floor, when a voice called:

"For God's sake, give it a freaking rest, Sam!" It was the blonde girl who'd been screaming before. She strutted across the carriage in her miniskirt, her spike-heeled boots clacking on the wooden beams as she went. "We all know you have the biggest ego in the room, sweetie – leave it out". She tossed her thick hair across her shoulder as she spoke, raising an eyebrow. Sam smirked up at her now, changing his tune:

"Sure thing, gorgeous…" The girl wrinkled her nose and threw herself down onto the bench next to me.

"You okay?" She grinned, "Sorry about that – He's an idiot." I snorted and nodded weakly.

"Yeah – thanks."

"No problem! I'm Karly, by the way – Karly Linnaeus. That idiot over there's Minho - he's the son of a martial arts medallist from Korea."

Karly pointed across at the Asian boy she'd been yelling at before, who – on hearing his name – heaved himself into a vertical position and waved. Looking at him, I could believe it - the guy was built like an oak tree and in his current situation, I could see the veins popping in his muscled arms. I didn't realise I was staring until Karly elbowed me in the ribs with a questioning face:

"Aaaand you are?"

"Oh! Sorry - Lilianne Pasteur."

Karly screwed her eyes up, "Yeesh. And I thought Linnaeus was bad..."

I drew back then, confused and a little offended. What was wrong with my name? Okay, it definitely wasn't much – it sounded more like one of those fancy liqueur chocolates that looks pretty but nobody actually likes, than a name – but it was all I had. What right did this high-school prom queen have to sneer at it? I was getting ready to make a snarky comment that was about as impressive as my remark to Sam when Karly noticed the look on my face and hastily raised her hands:

"Whoa, whoa – no offense! I thought they'd told you the whole thing with the names!"

There was a pattern to our names? That would make sense – the few I'd heard so far sounded pretty insane. Karly was hurrying to explain it, gesturing at the other carriage hostages, rattling off their names at a million miles an hour – and I was absolutely certain that I would remember none of them afterwards. Her first gesture was at a small, willowy girl with perfect coffee-coloured skin and flowing black hair.

"That's Mariella Curie, she's from Lisbon, got on the train two weeks ago – talks about her hair, her make-up and her boyfriend constantly – disgrace to her namesake, don't waste your time." I nodded, hoping that was the right response. Next was a taller, African looking girl with dark-brown hair and a skinny looking redhead with milk white skin.

"Harriet Beecher-Stowe and Sonya Sarandon: They're okay, quite smart and a hundred times better than Mariella. Dmitri Mendeleev, Russian – seems alright but speaks absolutely no English, so no-one really has a clue about the guy (could be a mass murderer for all we know). Benjamin Franklin…"

Karly carried on with the list but I'd stopped listening, turning the names over in my head. They were all familiar to me – Marie Curie discovered radioactivity, Dmitri Mendeleev was the Periodic table, Harriet Beecher-Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, Carl Linnaeus… I think that was something to do with animals and then…

"And then there's you!" Karly paused for breath, "Louis Pasteur – wasn't he that milk guy?"

"Pasteurization." I said, feeling a sudden need to protect my namesake. There was _no way_ I was going to be known as 'the milk girl' for the next decade. She nodded,

"Okay. So we're basically all famous people, which is why it sucks! I mean, _come on, _I could have been Rihanna or Oprah, or at least someone interesting – Joan of Arc or Cleopatra or something. _But no_."

Karly threw herself back against the rusted wall of the train, the hollow creaking sound disappearing into the general clamour of the carriage, and throwing her hand across her forehead dramatically. "I get to be the guy who invented _the organism classification system._"

Looking at this girl, collapsed across a window ledge, my exhausted brain started to summarize every depressing thing I'd been told that day. _New_ _identity, brain patterns, harmless tests, killzone department, 'you better hope you never find out', containment failure – _and her theatrical display over a celebrity namesake suddenly seemed so ridiculousthat I started to laugh – and not the attractive giggling you see on TV either; full on laughter than doesn't have a specific sound but is made up completely of snorting, squeaking and high-pitched noises. Karly removed her hand from her face in surprise and mock irritation, but took one look at me and promptly joined in.

By the time we'd stopped laughing over nothing and had pulled ourselves together, the 50% of the room that wasn't passed out was staring at us like we were full-gone Cranks. (At the time I didn't realise how normal that was going to become) But I'd passed the point of caring now, so just met their eyes and grinned at them Cheshire cat style and sang "Sorry!"

Karly picked my hand up off the seat and swung it back and forth, stating "We're gonna be friends."

And though she was never the kind of friend I'd imagined when I was alone in my room, or even the kind of friend I'd have picked when I stepped into W.I.C.K.E.D's world for the first time, she was right.

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><p>In the next hour, as the clouds drew together across the sky and the rain began to batter the carriage - the noise sounding like gunfire inside the metal room- , I learned. I'd be more specific but that's really what it was. Mostly I learned useless trivia about the other people on the train (Minho's greatest weakness is avocado, Karly can quote every Keira Knightley film there has ever been, Mariella's boyfriend is called Archibaldo, Harriet won fifteen under 12 marathons before the sun flares hit and Dmitri loves kittens - we think) but also, we pooled our knowledge about W.I.C.K.E.D and what was happening. Unfortunately, it didn't take much pooling to work out that we knew absolutely nothing, but I think it made everybody feel better to come up with bizarre theories about our possible destination and our future. The reality, of course, was beyond our wildest nightmares, but in that freezing train with a storm starting up outside, it was much more entertaining to spout rubbish like 'world domination', 'cloning' and 'advanced chicken racing' than anything that was actually possible.<p>

So, when the door flew open with an almighty crash and two teenage boys were flung roughly in, it's fair to say that everyone jumped a foot in the air.

"Oh my God!" Karly yelled, pulling on my arm as a man in a white suit walked in behind the boys, a disapproving expression on his face. W.I.C.K.E.D was painted across the jacket in large red letters. The boys were still on the floor, trying to disentangle their limbs when the man started to lecture them in the most patronising voice imaginable.

"Boys, boys, boys." This was accompanied by a disappointed shake of the head. "You are supposed to be intelligent young men –how many times must I tell you? STAY IN YOUR DESIGNATED CARRIAGE UNTIL WE REACH OUR DESTINATION. There are small children and elderly citizens in the other parts of the train and your attire, manner and language greatly unsettles them. There _are _solitary compartments that could be arranged for the next six hours if you cannot follow the rules…"

The man let the threat tail off. The older boy, a dark-skinned teen with close cropped hair, mumbled something that might have been an apology, hanging his head and placing what was supposed to be a restraining hand on the other boy's arm. The younger one was tall, taller than his friend but far skinner, his legs too long for his body. He shook off the hand irritably and stood up, brushing his dark blond hair out of his eyes. _Does he want to spend the rest of the trip solitary? _I thought, _I'd go insane…_

"Follow the rules?" The boy hissed, his eyes narrowed, "All we've been doin' for the past three weeks is followin' your bloody rules! Locked up in this buggin' tin can for _three weeks_ with nothing to do but bang our heads together! There's a kid over there –" He gestured towards the bundle in the corner, his voice getting louder. "Who's been cryin' his little head off since Paris – if that isn't 'greatly unsettled' I don't know what bloody is! You said you wanted us to help you – you never mentioned turning us into buggin' Cranks in the process! I'm tellin' ya', I'm going barmy – we all are!"

It was obvious that this kid was throwing every nasty word he had in his worn-out brain at the man, but the employee just took it silently, arms folded, waiting for the boy to finish. He reached out his hands, placing them firmly on the blond's shoulders, locking eyes with him. _Very passive aggressive_.

"There are only six more hours to go – you have been a model subject so far – keep going. As for Master Churchill – he is adjusting; rest assured his distress will pass. Now, unless you _want _to spend the journey alone, follow Mr Einstein's example."

There was something else in the man's voice, not just threat but knowledge. He knew that confinement would silence the boy – and whatever he knew, he was right. The kid's eyes were smouldering and his fists were clenched, but he turned his back on the employee and threw himself onto the wooden floor. The man smiled to himself, evidently considering this a victory, and left, closing the door with a bang – one final insult.

"Good riddance." The dark skinned boy, punched his friend lightly on the shoulder and muttered something very uncomplimentary about the man that I am not about to repeat.

Listening to the two boys suddenly made my think of my Mom and what her face would look like if she could hear them. Any one of the words they were tossing around would have given her a 'fit of the vapours' and had her scrubbing my mouth out with carbolic soap! The thought made me laugh quietly as I pictured her cupping her hands over my ears, "_Close your ears darling, there are__ youths __present." _The way she'd say it, as if the very idea of swearing 'youths' appalled her.

But the blond boy looked up then, his face still flushed (with embarrassment or anger, I couldn't tell) catching the smile as it faded from my lips. He scowled, giving me a filthy glare- the resentment painted clearly on his face, curled his lip and spat:

"Well we can't all talk like the bloody Queen, Princess!"

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><p><strong>Hi everyone! Thank you so much for your amazing reviews – they keep me going! <strong>

**I'm really sorry it's a day late – I'm quite laid-back in real life, but when I'm writing I'm a total perfectionist, and I just didn't think it was ready **

**Merry Christmas for tomorrow everyone! Have a fabulous day!**

**Star ***


	4. Chapter 4 - Lily

_**I do not own TMR - The world/characters/central plot of Maze Runner belongs to James Dashner!**_

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><p><span><em><strong>Chapter 4 - Lily<strong>_

"Well we can't all talk like the bloody Queen, Princess!"

_Well then._ Looking back at the situation, the guy had obviously had a pretty rough day (actually, scrap that – a pretty rough fortnight), and he thought I was sneering at his accent - which he'd probably already got some abuse for. So, his response was pretty understandable, but after the day _I'd _had, I was tired, confused and generally all-round grouchy; so the boy didn't exactly receive my friendliest reaction. Black, Sam, W.I.C.K.E.D and FJ had used up all of the friendliness I usually reserved for jerks. I met his eyes, amber for brown.

"Clearly" I retorted coldly, in my mother's uptown accent – about as far from his backstreet drawl as I could get – and turned back to Karly, about to accept that I'd made a dangerous-looking enemy within _two hours_ of being on the train, when the boy's face suddenly changed. He shook his head sharply, as if trying to get rid of something and pushed himself up from the slatted floor, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands and began to walk towards us, a sheepish look on his face. Just in case I hadn't noticed the change in the situation, Karly elbowed me hard in the ribs and waggled her eyebrows, giving the boy her 'hard stare' (something that quickly became a signature move) obviously unimpressed, as he paused, rearranging his limbs to sit in front of us.

"Hiya" He said, running a hand through his hair with an apologetic – and sort of disgusted - expression. "I'm sorry, that was rude. Really _gittish_ – oh, bloody hell, this is embarrassing," The boy looked back to the spot he'd sat in, screwing his face up, and even with his new-found goodwill, he seemed hilariously flustered: "I don't even know what that buggin' _was_ – Twenty one days in a midget train with a bunch of whingin' teens, these total prats they call employees and the poor sap in the corner's makin' me bloody schizophrenic."

He said the last part with his brown eyes wide and his hands in front of him, as if he was warning me off the madness I'd stepped into, before pointing at his older friend, who had stood up and was talking to Minho (now happily back in an upside-down position).

"If anyone's gonna be a lovin' pessimist, it's him, not me – I'm tellin' ya, you give the guy a unicorn, he'd tell ya' it was a rhino…." Rolling his eyes, he stopped for breath and seemed to peter off a bit:

"…Aaand I'm gonna shut it now and let ya' speak 'cause I'm rambling and I do that when I don't know what to say and I want ya' to believe me and it's always bloody stupid – So, I-I didn't mean that –I-I'm really sorry…" He looked up at me through his matted fair hair, the sheepish smile still on his face, as he waited for me to answer him.

Honestly, I was panicking a bit too – the boy had given me so much information in his strange, thick accent, so quickly that I was still translating the last half of it a full 30 seconds after he'd finished – I didn't have the slightest clue what to tell him. Karly was (luckily) seated too far to my right for him to see her, but was shaking her head, making crossing motions across her throat and mouthing '_NO. __**NO." **_But I'd already decided that I didn't want enemies (particularly not any as big as this guy's friends) and I hadn't exactly been nice enough to deserve his winning apology, so I ignored Karly and stammered,

"No, no – I-It's okay, it's okay, it's fine – I _wasn't_ laughing at you – but it's okay, I wasn't friendly either – so, we're even, I guess – it's cool."

'_**It's cool'**__? What?! Since when do I __**ever**__ use that? Since when does __**anyone **__ever __use that? _ Karly sighed noisily and threw her head into her hands, but the boy visibly relaxed and immediately broke into a blinding, if slightly crooked, megawatt grin – he was obviously back on home ground. He looked like this was the kind of smile he gave to people all the time – the kind of person who smiles at old people and babies and children and everything else that breathes. _A people person. _He was so busy blinding us that he didn't seem to notice my grimace at myself and I was about to say something 'eloquent' to make up for it, but he was talking again:

"Thanks – that's brilliant!" Choosing to upgrade from the freezing floor, he pulled himself up into the hostile space on the bench between me and the punks. "I'm Newt, by the way."

"Newt? What kind of a name is '_Newt'_?" Karly was determined not to like the guy, her nose wrinkled with the question, almost sneering. He looked across at her, either choosing to ignore her scathing tone or honestly not noticing it, and answered reluctantly, screwing his own face up as he did:

"Ugh! Well, actually–" Newt jerked a thumb back towards the door of the compartment, his voice mocking, "_They_ told me it's 'Isaac Newton'but - no bloody way. What chance does a London street kid have of livin' up to the guy who discovered buggin' _gravity_? I mean, I came here to be an actually worthwhile version of myself, not a pathetic echo of somebody else. He can keep his stupid name – I don't want it. Plus, it's not like I'm really _breakin'_ their rule. Just…bending it."

"So we've got ourselves a badass?" Okay, I was wrong. I'd forgotten how impressed Karly was by 'bad boys'. Anyone who broke the rules was instantly super-cute, regardless of what the person actually looked like – all negatives instantly vanished. She smiled at him, but Newt suddenly looked awkward and – giving a short laugh - immediately turned the conversation away from himself.

"Not exactly… Yeah, so I'm Newt - Call me Isaac at ya' own bloody risk – and that buggin' ray of sunshine over there's Alby – talk to him_ full stop_ at ya' own risk."

Hearing his name (and Newt's teasing comment) the dark-skinned boy spun round and began to stride across the carriage towards us. Alby was pretty much the polar opposite of Newt; he was a little shorter but muscular and sturdy, his strength clear in every step he took. I glanced at the door, surprised he hadn't left a dent in the floorboards when the W.I.C.K.E.D worker threw him in - it looked like you could drive a double-decker bus into the guy and he wouldn't even flinch. Where Newt had ambled over; his gait making it seem like he had all day to get there, Alby really did _stride_ – walking with a purpose that would have been intimidating had it not been for the playful glint in his eyes. When he reached us, he swatted Newt across the back of the head with a smirk, making the boy slip off the bench with a surprised yelp, before grinning at us.

"Alby Einstein." His voice was deeper than I'd expected - he held his hand out and we shook it in turn, "Welcome to hell! I'm surprised this one hasn't yapped your ears off yet – 'S been a fortnight and I haven't said jack so far, it's so hard to get a word in"

Newt made an injured noise from the floor, dragging himself slowly back up next to me and shooting Alby an aggrieved look.

"Oww - I think you broke my tailbone…" He grumbled, before flashing him a more pained version of his usual smile, "But ya' love me really!"

"Yeah, sure." Alby answered, rolling his eyes. "So, when'd you pair get on? Never noticed ya' before."

Karly huffed and tossed her hair, obviously taking that as some kind of personal insult. "That," she said, "is because we weren't _here_ before. We got on this morning – you?"

The two of them then launched into a conversation that was more than a little passive aggressive and Newt laughed quietly under his breath. I took that to mean he was listening to them, so when he tapped me lightly on the shoulder, I assumed it was an accident 'til he did it again.

"Hey," he said, "Me and my big mouth – I never asked your name, and I'm getting sorta tired of calling ya' Princess in my head."

"S'okay," That seemed to be becoming my catchphrase, "I'm Lilianne Pasteur … You can laugh, it's funny." It was the second time I'd told someone my name and it definitely wasn't getting any less embarrassing, but Newt didn't pull a face or laugh at me; just shook his head.

"_That's _funny? Sorry, did ya' hear my name? I am – out of choice – a lizard for life. Come on, _that's _funny. Yours is nice – it's posh." He looked me up and down, but not in the creepy way Sam had, "Doesn't suit ya' though – it's nice to meet ya', Lily."

_Lily... Lily Pasteur... Yes._ I smiled at the boy and it felt like the first genuine smile I'd shown since getting up that morning – something that now seemed aeons ago. _Lily… _I liked that.

Of course, all of the usual introductory small talk that my mother loved kicked in about then. I'd always hated it –Who cared if this stranger had a soccer-playing older brother or lived in a flat in a quarantine town with fifteen cats and a budgie? But now, with people my own age (rather than the crazy hamster lady who'd lived next door at home), and in this screwed-up nightmare situation, it wasn't that bad. Minho walked over to join us, and I told them about my town, my parents, my house arrest _"So basically, you lived 'Tangled?" _and the way Dad had gone missing – thank God, they didn't give me the pitying looks and the apologetic nothings that usually followed the last bit. Newt told us that he'd been on the train from the start in London – and it hadn't just been a train either – it had been a plane, a coach, a number of ships and a Berg to get to where we were then. Curious, I tried to ask him about his home and his family, but he clammed up instantly at that, giving an vague answer about '_somewhere on the outskirts_' , before grilling Alby about his hometown – although having been on the same train as him for a fortnight, Newt must have known the answer. Karly and I exchanged glances – what was he hiding?

Karly's life had actually been pretty similar to mine, just minus the protectiveness. Instead of hiding out in her room, Karly had been one of the rebels, risking it out in a parking lot with the local boys. Alby had lived with his gran in one of the protected cities here in the US and had got on the coach a week after Newt. Minho had lived in a training facility in Korea anyway because of his Dad and reckoned he was pretty fit – though he hated running. He was just in the middle of a funny story about the time he 'borrowed' his Mom's German Shepherd cause he wanted to ride it round a race track, when all the lights went out.

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><p>"Ahh!" Karly shrieked and clutched at Minho – which he sounded rather smug about, and some others made sounds of surprise but Newt and Alby just groaned.<p>

"Here we bloody go…"

"What is it? What's going on?" I asked Newt, tapping him on the shoulder hurriedly – at least, I assumed it was him.

"Ah, nothin' – keep your undies on, all of ya' – happens every night. They take the phrase 'lights out' buggin' seriously here." He gave a soft laugh and yawned as Alby added:

"Ain't nothin' to do but quit your piping and sleep – they give us exactly nine hours, so you might as well use it, kid."

I felt the boys move away a bit as someone took blankets down from the baggage compartments; the metal doors making an ear-splitting screeching noise as they creaked open, and started throwing the blankets around the room randomly – there was no real point in aiming. I caught one as Karly (I knew it was her, I could smell her perfume) reached out to grab my hand and pulled herself closer to where I was sitting.

"It's scarier now it's dark." She whispered to me, her previously confident voice shaking a little.

"Hey," I squeezed her hand, in what I hoped was a reassuring way, "It's all right, you know. We're still in a rusty carriage with a load of drama queens and cocky morons on the track to nowhere. We'll be fine."

She laughed shakily as Minho – who obviously hadn't moved that far – called out:

"Sure thing – which one am I?"

"The drama queen…" Newt's voice, from somewhere in front of me, much sleepier now than it had been a few minutes ago, "Now shut ya' hole and buggin' sleep – we'll be there before the lights come up."

As I lay back against the wall of the train, feeling the thrum of the engine vibrating through the metal, I suddenly processed what Newt had said. We'd _be_ there – wherever there was. And it was sort of ironic, plunging us into darkness like this; a metaphor for what was to come. Complete blackness – we had an idea of what was in it, but no-one was sure about what lurked there. Technically we weren't by ourselves – there were others– but for all we knew about them and for all we could see of them we might as well have been alone. The crippling terror was short-lived in the dark, but the uneasiness was always there and the sense of knowing that the only way out of it was to endure and wait for the dawn. So ironic, it's almost funny, actually. But the lack of light eventually had the same effect on me that it did on the others, and I lost the will to think very hard about it and about W.I.C.K.E.D and what the morning would bring… _what does it matter?... _I thought…_ it's not like I'm gonna have a choice…_

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><p>At some point, I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I remember is someone shaking me and hissing:<p>

"Lily… _**Lily**__,_"

"Ugh…" Without opening my eyes, I lashed out at the someone and groaned – I'm not a morning person. "Go away…" Unfortunately, they didn't.

"_**Lily**_!"

"Mmmm…. What?_**"**_

This time I tried to open my eyes blearily. Nobody else seemed to be awake, as nothing but silence filled the air, broken only by the occasional snuffles and snores. It definitely wasn't morning, because I could see the moonlight streaming through the gaps in the blinds – something that only increased my irritation with whoever had woken me up, until a shaft of light fell on the person next to me and I saw it was Newt. He also looked half-asleep, but there was an excited light in his brown eyes that panicked me. So, ignoring my previous annoyance, I hurriedly pushed myself up from under the blanket, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

"What's happened? What's wrong?" He shook his head and touched a finger to his lips, '_shhh',_ before taking my hand, dragging me up, over to the bench nearest the windows before clambering onto the windowsill and motioning for me to do the same. I did, with little difficulty, having done it so many times in my window seat at home. He raised his eyebrows, seemingly impressed but was quickly distracted by whatever he'd wanted to show me.

"Look!" Newt's voice was an excited whisper, cutting through the silence of the room as he brushed back the scratchy blinds and pointed out of the window, "Look, Lily!"

I leant forward, craning my neck to try and see whatever he was so worked up about, rather than the train tracks I could see at the moment. It took a couple of seconds, "_Do ya' see it?" _'s and pressing my face against the glass attractively before I finally did. In the distance, somewhere near the end of the track was a village – no, not even that – a collection of buildings that were all white paint and blue strips, with lights in the windows. A large, illuminated sign that I couldn't quite read lit up the darkness around it. It was beautiful, in a harsh sort of way. Far prettier than my hometown, despairing, crumbling and Flare-ravaged – almost as pretty as some of the towns I remembered seeing on television – all neon lights and laughter. It was a mismatch of shapes against the black skyline, striking in the moonlight.

"It's beautiful.." I breathed, still unsure why Newt had woken me up to show me. He nodded but sighed irritably, like I was missing the point.

"Well, _yes,_ but look harder."

Confused, I looked again, forcing my eyes to focus on the glaring sign. Gradually, my eyes adjusted to the lights – and there it was, plain as daylight – I wondered how on earth I'd missed it before. 'The letters W-I-C-K-E-'D, were painted first, taking up almost all of the board, but in smaller writing at the bottom of the board were the words, 'SUBJECT TRAINING CENTRE.' Instantly, all the majestic beauty of the place melted away and a cold fear settled in my stomach. Newt looked across and knew I'd seen it, his eyes – unlike mine, which I am certain reflected my stomach's feelings here – were alight with nervous energy. He flashed me a slightly uncertain smile:

"This is it. It's _starting_."

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><p><strong>Hi everyone! I hope you all had an great new year :-) Happy 2015 !:-) <strong>

**So they've arrived! Sorry this was such a filler chapter - I promise they actually get _off _the train in the next one! :-) **

**Okay, so school's starting again for me tomorrow, so it's going to be a lot harder for me to update - I'm aiming to post a new chapter every Sunday, which I really will try to do but some of them might be a bit shorter :-)**

**Finally - I have a question for you:**

**Obviously, because of the Maze Trials, the story's going to have to split into at least two POV's but I'm probably going to introduce this a while before they actually enter the mazes - So who's POV would you guys like to see? I'll consider anything - as long as it's not really out there, like a griever or something (although that would be cool) :-)**

**As always - Thank you for the lovely reviews - reviews make me _really_ excited and motivate me to actually write the story rather than think about it! :-)**

**Star****


	5. Chapter 5 - Small Kids And Cereal Bars

**I** **do not own TMR - The world/characters/central plot of Maze Runner belongs to James Dashner! **

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><p><em><strong>Chapter 5 – Small Kids And Cereal Bars<strong>_

It took about half an hour for the flashes of bright moonlight to wake the others in the carriage, and the same again for everyone to actually be conscious enough to react to our new surroundings. Our plunge into darkness and silence had happened in minutes, nobody really speaking – reversing the process was harder. Some of us – like Newt and me –were awake already, moving from blanket bundle to blanket bundle, shaking shoulders and coaxing people out of their fogginess. Others, like Harriet and Dmitri, were awake in seconds, brushing off sleep like you'd brush off dust. _Oh, to have a talent like that, _I thought enviously, as Karly desperately fought off my efforts to bring her back to the land of the living, pushing my hands away and whining:

"Nooooo – it's _dark_… You're so _cruel, _Lily."

Looking around at the glassy eyes and vacant faces in the carriage, I doubted that some of the subjects had slept at all – the poor kid in the corner had popped his head out of his cocoon to ask for a drink at one point – but his eyes were bloodshot and his tiny voice scratchy. Watching them, I suddenly felt really selfish; I'd been grumpy and depressing over being on this metal monster for a day but, if Newt had been tracking the days correctly; some of them had been here for almost a month – I couldn't believe no-one had thrown themselves out of a window yet!

But, anyway, Alby's idea had been to get everyone together to have a _calm_, _mature_ discussion about what we were doing next – which seemed like a great plan at the time – but as soon as more than half the carriage was awake, the news spread like wildfire and the room exploded into total chaos. People were flying around the small space, pressing themselves against the windows and shouting, scrabbling around on the floor for belongings that had rolled, some people burst into tears, others squealed and bounced around - it was a scene of absolute panic. _Everyone_ was freaking out and I was just about to pack it in and join them, when I caught sight of Minho sitting on the bench nearby with his eyes closed, humming tunelessly. Momentarily fascinated, I forgot my meltdown and, stepping over the people crawling about, sat down next to him.

"What are you doing!?" I shouted into his ear.

"Shutting them out!" He yelled back, "Seriously, there should be a limit on how high these people are legally allowed to scream – I feel like I'm on the set of freaking '_Alvin and the Chipmunks 2'_!"

I laughed and copied him, pulling my knees up to my chest and started to sing '_Don't Stop Believing' _loud enough to block out the chipmunks, butMinho's humming cut out instantly and he arched an eyebrow at me.

"What? It has the word 'train' in it!"

It was Minho's turn to laugh then, displaying his rows of perfectly straight, white teeth as he did. He shook his head despairingly at me, but immediately joined in at an ear-splitting volume; catching Karly's attention as she sashayed over to join in. I was surprised by how well it worked – we were so busy laughing and screeching our way through the verses that the noise of the others just disappeared – though you could say it worked _too _well. Everyone else did gradually stop freaking because of how loudly we were assaulting their eardrums, and they either sneered and turned their backs - calling us '**psycho losers**' - or laughed and jumped onto the mega-cheesy, dangerously off-key bandwagon. Sure, it was one of the weirdest, randomest moments of my life, and there was definitely something slightly hysterical about it – but, by giving us a moment of total hysteria, I guess W.I.C.K.E.D accidentally gave us one of the biggest tips on surviving the trials. Stick together and work as a team – individually we panicked and gave ourselves miniature heart attacks but when we got together, we not only got a grip, but performed some kick-ass karaoke! _Life lesson right there._

Newt had been sitting in the corner 'till then, obviously trying to talk to the blanket kid and convince him to eat one of the cereal bars we'd been given last night. I couldn't hear the words, but judging by Newt's exhausted expression, it seemed to be going round in circles. But then, the second we started singing, Newt's face split into a grin and he pushed the cereal bar at the kid, ruffling his hair and stood up, loping over to stand in front of me. He leant against one of the metal bars and started tapping a beat on the floor of the carriage with his foot, laughing as he did it.

"Come on, man!" Minho reached up and punched him in the arm, "Stop freaking _tap-dancing_ and sing!"

And when I played this back afterwards, this was the part I never understood: When Minho said that, for a split-second, Newt's eyes lit up like a kid who'd been given free rein in a candy store and he opened his mouth like he was going to join in, but then his expression flickered suddenly and he just snorted and rolled his eyes – though he never stopped tapping out the beat with his foot:

"Yeah … I don't sing."

There was a moment there, as Karly would say, where you could actually taste the awkward. Nobody quite knew what to say – but luckily, two things happened at once that shattered the silence and the awkward. The door to our carriage banged open. And the train stopped.

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><p>Everyone who'd been sitting on the floor or lounging around scrambled to their feet, whispering and shooting glances out of the window as four W.I.C.K.E.D workers pushed their way into the already crowded room. The view was exactly what Newt had shown me earlier on, just closer - the mismatch of blue-white buildings with their towering signs. The others were all gasping over it, but what surprised me most was the enormous number of people milling around outside. Obviously, I expected there to be people at the facility already, but lots of the people here were my age – some a little older, some a bit younger – and nobody there turned to look at our train as it sat there. Were they workers? Or were they the same as us – sold and trapped? One of the workers – a small blond woman with friendly blue eyes and a calming voice – stood on a chair in front of us and raised her voice over the anxious hum of noise that had erupted.<p>

"Kids! _Kids!_ … Thank you. I know you're all very confused and you want to ask us a million questions, but right now I need to you focus and follow our instructions. As soon as you enter the facility, you will be taken to an assembly with the Chancellor where everything will become crystal clear, okay? Okay. Welcome to W.I.C.K.E.D – I'm Ava Paige and I'm going to be one of your training instructors while you're here, I hope you all had a comfortable journey."

A number of incredulous snorts and shouts filled the air at that, but Ava Paige just raised her hands and everyone fell silent again.

"All right – maybe 'comfortable' wasn't the right word, but you all did exceedingly well. Now, I need you kids to file off the train in an orderly fashion and line up outside according to the number on your identification – A's on the left, B's on the right. – Okay everyone, let's go."

Still sort of stunned, we all picked up what belongings we had and started to file out of the carriage silently. As our random High School Musical moment had taken place on the benches at the back, we were the last to leave the room. Newt pushed himself up off the pole he'd leant on and slung an arm across Alby's shoulders, spinning him around to look at the carriage.

"Ya' know, I think I'm kinda gonna miss this place." He said; a sarcastic smile on his face.

"Hell yeah – it's gonna be torture to sleep on an actual bed for once." Alby grinned and shoved Minho out of the double doors before jumping out himself, "Come on, Newton. Don't wanna be late for _the Chancellor_."

Newt beckoned to me with a grin and turned to the doors, "Ya' ready, Lil?"

I nodded and was about to follow him, when I heard a sniffle. I looked back to the corner of the carriage and I saw the blanket bundle still there, quivering. In the rush to get out of the doors, no-one had noticed the boy– the crush must have panicked him and the sniffling was rapidly building back up to a wail again. Newt hadn't heard it, so I called out:

"Newt! Tell them I'll be a second – I'm in B group. I've just got to-" Newt spun back to me and saw the kid too. He sighed and his forehead creased up.

"Oh bloody hell; gettin' him to move will take another day… Look, let's go and tell that Ava woman, they'll come and get him – seriously, he won't listen to us – I've been trying since buggin' France."

"He's French?" Maybe that'd help – I was awful at French but it was something. Newt saw the look on my face and shook his head again.

"Well, yeah, I think so, he seems to speak English– but Lil_,_ _come on._ We gotta go!"

"No. They'll terrify him even more than we did. He's never going to settle in if he doesn't at least trust some of us – you go, tell them I'm coming."

He sighed again and walked back to me, placing a hand on my shoulder. I jumped a little in surprise at the contact - _Oh get a grip, _I told myself, _He gave you an electric shock from the railing._ _Help the kid. _

"Ya' sure you don't want me to stay?" I stepped out from under his hand and began to walk towards the boy.

"No, it's fine –go!"

With a final lopsided smile, he did and I turned my attention back to the boy. _Take it slow. _I sat down on the bench next to the blankets and tentatively laid my hand on the first one to pull it back, wondering briefly if I should have let Newt stay – I had zero experience with children. When the kid didn't lash out or anything, I slowly peeled away the blankets one by one, like layers off an onion, placing them on the floor. The boy was young, even younger than I'd thought – maybe seven or eight. He was actually quite a pretty kid – his hair was all thick black curls and his eyes looked like they were bright blue normally, but they were swollen and red-rimmed from all the crying, the olive skin around them all puffed up. Looking at his little face, screwed up with abject misery made me so angry with W.I.C.K.E.D I could barely breathe.

Finally, painstakingly, I got down to the last blanket – a tattered pale blue thing, that I was sort of disgusted W.I.C.K.E.D had actually given to us – and reached out to take it off, when the boy let out an ear-piercing shriek, pushing me away and started to scream at the top of his tiny lungs, the tears starting to stream again. _Oh no._

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Okay, okay!" I reached into the blankets on the floor and picked up his ID tag, backing away with my hands up. "It's okay… Winston."

On hearing his name, he stopped ripping up his lungs. He clutched the thin blue blanket to his chest and looked up at me, whispering through cracked lips:

" 'S _mine_. They tried to take it away." His distrusting blue eyes brimmed again and part of my heart broke.

"It's okay, Winston – I'm not gonna take it."

"It's my blankie and I _want it_."

That was it – and I don't know what this was, my inbuilt motherly instinct or something – but I reached out to Winston and wrapped the blanket around his shoulders again, picked him gently up off the splintered bench and set him onto his feet.

"It's a beautiful blankie – but I promise you get to keep it. Now, how about we take blankie outside, so he can breathe some fresh air, okay? He must've hated it cramped in here…"

Winston gave me a strange look, then suddenly started to laugh – and I almost started crying myself, I cannot tell you how relived I was right then.

"Well…he does want to get off the train, but he doesn't _breathe, _silly! He's a _blankie!_"

The kid went off into peals of laughter at the idea and let me take his hand and lead him over to the door of the compartment. I almost thought I had this, when we reached the double doors and Winston slammed on the breaks. He stuck his head out of the door, seeing all of the buildings and the other kids – who were now trying to sort themselves into long lines – and then jerked it back in, a frightened expression on his face.

"I don't like it." He decided, "Who are you? Where are we? Those people kept poking me and throwing things at me and telling me to be quiet, when I didn't want to be quiet, I wanted to cry, but they wouldn't let me! They're all nasty people… Blankie doesn't want to go out there. Ever…"

I knelt down to his level then and pulled him back to the doorway, so we could see out of it. My friends were standing together, clustered at the front of some of the rows and I pointed to them.

"My name's Lily, kiddo – and trust me, I'm not letting anything happen to blankie or you okay? And you see those people there?" He nodded, "Those are my friends – and they aren't nasty. The shortest one's Minho – he can do a somersault, just like in the circus and he's nice! The girl with the blonde hair's Karly – she's got a little brother about your age, _she's_ nice and the tall one's Newt –"

Winston wrinkled his nose, "He made me eat a cereal bar. It tasted like dirt."

"Oh." I grimaced, "Um… Well, I'm sure he didn't mean it! But, we need you to come and line up with the boys now, okay? And we'll protect you from the nasty ones, I _promise_."

The little boy looked up at me then, as if he was considering it – considering me. His eyes stared at my face for a long time, checking I was telling the truth and wasn't just going to snatch his blankie away and lock him up the second he let his guard down, until he finally nodded slowly and asked warily, holding out his little finger:

"Do you _pinky_ promise?"

"I pinky promise."

Winston's face, still tired and a bit tear-stained, broke into a smile and he put his little hand into mine, squeezed it and jumped off the train with a yell, dragging me with him. When we landed hard on the grass next to the other subjects, he shrieked and spun round to me, his hands on his hips.

"Come _on, _Lily – you're so _slow!_"

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><p>Hi everyone - I hope you all had a great week!<p>

Again - I need to apologise about this chapter - I didn't start this early enough today and I'd meant for it to be way longer, but it's really late where I am and because of my writing OCDness, I can't write any more tonight! So I'm really sorry - but yay, little Winston :)

On the bright side, I have a day off school on Wednesday, so I'll try and write the extra part of the chapter and post it then :)

Thank you for all your fabulous reviews! (I usually answer them by PM! :) ) And for your P.O.V ideas - the next Sunday chapter is going to start from Newt's P.O.V!

Have a good week!

Star *


	6. Chapter 6 - Corridors and Canteens

_**I do not own TMR - The world/characters/central plot of Maze Runner belongs to James Dashner!**_

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><p><em><strong>Chapter 6 – Corridors, Canteens and Blue Plastic Chairs<strong>_

While Winston and I were making our disruptive exit from the train, Ava Paige had been sorting the others into perfect, parallel lines outside the main building. Newt, Alby, Minho, Sam, Dmitri and some others I didn't recognise had been lined up in front of a sign simply labelled 'A', everyone clutching their plastic identity cards. An older lady with kind looking eyes swooped down on Winston the second we jumped out, and gave him a friendly smile, before leading him away and slotting him in behind Minho. As he was slotted in, he twisted his head back round, his blue eyes worried – _like a baby owl_, I thought – but I nodded to him, pointing at Minho, with what was supposed to be a reassuring expression and he stepped in (thankfully) without any screaming. Looking over at Group B, I pulled my ID from my pocket to check the number (**Subject B5**) and walked fast to the front end of the line, sliding quietly into the gap between Sonya and Mariella.

"Is that it? Is everybody off?" Ava Paige leant down to a young man with a clipboard, who whispered something in her ear. "Fantastic! Thank you for exiting the train so efficiently, everyone – your cooperation was highly impressive. Now, we have exactly sixteen minutes to assemble you all in the Lecture Theatre for 'The Chancellor's Welcome', so we need to move move move! Nick, Harriet – follow Dr Robins into the Theatre, lead your lines – let's go!"

There was a moment of confusion as everyone tried to work out who Dr Robins was, but once we'd established that he was the small, grey-haired man with a tweedy suit and glasses who looked like he'd just stepped out of the 1980's, the lines started to crawl warily forwards, following him towards the huge glass doors of the building.

_**Okay**_. I'm going to tell you this now – as a friendly warning – if you are ever interested in getting large groups of people (particularly hyperactive and emotional teenagers) into your nice, expensive building _never __ever _make the only entrance a revolving door. Ava Paige had planned it so well – getting us all through the doors, three in each compartment, would take precisely eight minutes, leaving us another eight to reach the Lecture Theatre. Except, she forgot to factor in the thrill of really seeing one of these things after the Sun Flares and the inevitable pushing of the automatic doors that followed, just to see how fast they went – as it turned out: way too fast for us to actually get out into the reception and not just get spat back out onto the pavement again. It took fifteen minutes, a lot of W.I.C.K.E.D employees getting red in the face and shouting and – I was impressed – only four slammed fingers to get us all into the lobby to count off. I think we may have just convinced Ava Paige never to have children.

The lobby itself was a lot smaller than it looked from the outside – and there were a _whole_ lot more people. Despite our deafening racket, almost nobody in the place turned a head– there were people tapping away at wall length screens with complex diagrams flashing across them, people running between rooms in blue shirts and white coats, people yelling instructions into mobile phones, people sitting on benches, eating like food was an inconvenience – tens of people, but nobody taking any notice of the twenty-six teens that were all staring, eyes wide at the organised chaos.

Ava Paige took in our faces and smiled, snapping her fingers and glancing at the clock pointedly.

"All right children – everything will be explained shortly. If we rush, we can still get there five minutes late!"

She signalled us toward the mouth of a long corridor and we followed her in our lines down what seemed like hundred of passageways, twisting and sloping down into the heart of the building – every corridor identical to the last. It gave me a strange feeling of being trapped – if we didn't know which one got us in, how could we know which one got us out? Sonya's forehead was wrinkled and she leaned backwards to whisper:

"This is horrid – I feel like we're stuck in an everlasting therapist's office!"

Mariella snorted and I grinned – I saw her point. The walls were painted a nasty coral colour and every one had 'calming' photographs of beautiful places before the Flares, bright flowers and sky-scraping trees, every five paces. It was supposed to be relaxing but with the hundreds of questions buzzing through our heads like hornets and nothing but the noise of our own feet on the floorboards ringing in our ears, the atmosphere just put us on edge – it's safe to say everyone was relieved when Ava finally stopped at a sign reading 'Lecture Theatre'. She turned round and raised her eyebrows.

"Ten minutes late, everyone? Not really a very good start, is it? Oh well, you can make up for it tomorrow –" At that slightly odd statement, people started muttering – _what was happening tomorrow? _– But Ava just did the hand thing again and the corridor fell silent.

"Now, file in silently, take your seats and the Chancellor will begin."

One of the other W.I.C.K.E.D workers swiped a card at the side of the door, sliding it open and our lines advanced again, down pristine white steps into the hall, where the Chancellor was waiting. The actual hall was the exact opposite of the corridors we'd just come through – and everything was white. Everything. The white didn't even _vary_ either, the ceiling was white, the polished linoleum floor was white, there were white plastic chairs set up in front of a white projected board – even the Chancellor's perfectly tailored suit was a blinding chalk colour against the podium he stood at. One of the boys – Jackson; I think his name was - groaned from the next row and threw his hands across his face:

"Argh! My eyes!"

There were some scattered chuckles from around the room, but everyone else's eyes were fixed on the Chancellor. He was a tall, middle-aged man with bright eyes and a kind smile, though the overall effect was diminished slightly by his noticeably receding hairline. The label on his suit lapel read '**CHANCELLOR JOHN MICHAEL.' **He continued to smile at us with creepily perfect teeth as everyone shuffled into the chair with their number on it and tried to push their belongings, with some effort, into the space below. Finally, when everyone had finished fussing, the Chancellor walked over to Ava Paige, took some papers out of her hands and knocked loudly on the podium with a wooden mallet he'd pulled from somewhere –not that that was really necessary (you could've heard a pin drop) but he'd probably been waiting to do it all day.

"Welcome, children," He began, with a voice that was just a little rougher than I'd imagined, "My name is Chancellor Michael and I am here to give you a very warm welcome from everybody here at W.I.C.K.E.D – we are delighted to have you all on board for the mission that is sure to go down in every history book from now. People will hear of your bravery for generations to come and we thank you for your help in advance. Now, I promise to keep this relatively short, as the extensive journey here will have tired you all and – knowing kids – will have also made you very hungry! So, as you all know why you're here, I will not go into that. I expect it is a painful and different topic for each one of you. At W.I.C.K.E.D, we believe in looking to the future, so I will tell you what I can about your immediate futures, rather than lingering on the world's past.

"You have been selected for a number of trials because you are all _immeasurably_ special – some in different ways to others. These trials and tests are being conducted to study your brain patterns to develop a cure for the Flare – however, the trials cannot actively take place for quite some time – months, maybe even years in the future. For the time in between you will be trained and taught how to perform to your very best during them. "We will try our hardest to give you a high quality of life here at W.I.C.K.E.D and to protect you from the Flare for as long as we possibly can. Do not worry: there _will _be a Cure before any of you gets hurt. Those of you in this room today are not the only ones chosen to perform this task –together there are several hundred children – you are merely the last train of subjects to arrive. Therefore, you will be given time tonight to stock up on maps of the site and supplies for your work, and to rest, and your initial training will begin tomorrow, to define what you all have to work with. Do not despair if your performance tomorrow is poor – you have all come from a variety of different backgrounds and cultures, so the results themselves will vary. You will be given many opportunities to improve both your physical and mental strength before the testing takes place. Now, rant over."

He flashed us the bright white smile again as a huge door opened up behind him.

"If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask. You may all exit in an orderly fashion through the door at my back – your belongings will be taken care of. Walk down this corridor, take three rights, a left, and another right, the second set of double doors on your left is the canteen entrance. Welcome to W.I.C.K.E.D children – I hope you will be very happy here. Enjoy your evening: work starts tomorrow."

And with that impersonal and slightly threatening finish, the Chancellor spun away from the podium and – accompanied by Ava Paige and all the other W.I.C.K.E.D workers – left the room via a (white) hidden side door. For a second, everyone was completely silent. Then, as usual, chaos took control – the information Chancellor Michael had given us hadn't exactly been surprising, we'd all expected about that, but ditching us in a white room in a giant building, with just one sentence of really messed up directions was not on the agenda. Most of the kids just ran out of the doors, obviously desperate to throw themselves into the maze that was behind them rather than stay in the white room any longer. Some people just sat down and waited for someone to come back for them.

"Hiya, kiddo."

I looked up to see Alby, with Minho and Newt close behind him. Karly was sitting at my feet, staring at the doors with her forehead crinkled, like if she stared long enough the instructions would appear long enough for us to write them down. It seemed like, almost by accident, the five of us had re-grouped. I tapped Karly on the shoulder and pulled her off the floor before turning to the boys:

"So what now? Is this a test? What do we do?"

Alby and Minho were silent, arms folded, but Newt suddenly snorted, making everyone jump.

"Isn't it bloody obvious? We all go out there-" He pointed back to the doors, the slightly surreal gleam in his eyes again, "- stop acting like sissy babies 'cause there's nobody to hold our hands on the way out and we find the main road - I'm tellin' ya - ya' think every one's exactly the same and it messes up your head, but there's always a road that leads everywhere – we just gotta find it!"

I was sort of impressed by Newt's idea and was standing up to go, but Alby raised his eyebrows with a teasing grin.

"Okay Bilbo Baggins, and when we find this 'magic road', we do what exactly?"

Newt huffed and looked more than a little offended, his hands on his hips. "Were you even listening? I never said jack about buggin' _magic _– ain't gonna need it – but when we get the _central corridor_, there will be people who know where the canteen is because food is sort of an important life source."

Alby rolled his eyes, but he was still smiling,

"Well, nobody's got a better idea – lead the way, kid."

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><p>In the end, I think we were all glad that Newt had taken charge – I don't know what he was seeing, but every corridor <em>did<em> look identical to me, and judging by the looks on the faces of the others, they didn't have much more of a clue. When half-an-hour had gone by, just turning left and right with not one person in the same corridor, Minho started to get a bit twitchy. He tried to bait Newt into an argument with comments about giraffe's and 'mind the ceiling' but the boy just pretended like he didn't hear – which only made it funnier for us watching, because Min got more and more worked up with every jibe Newt brushed off. The shorter boy was just about to implode and punch him when Newt stopped at a frosted door and put a finger to his lips:

"Guys, shh..." He gave Alby one of the most ridiculous smiles I've ever seen and pulled himself up even taller, if that was possible, as he pushed the door open. "I told ya' didn't I? Only lovin' _magic_ round here is me."

_Wow… anticlimax. _For a second, I was embarrassed for him. This corridor looked exactly the same as every other one we'd trailed down, but as soon as we stepped forward, I got it. There were twice the number of doors here and – as there were only five of us – about ten times more people and most of them the same age as we were, everyone bustling around up different halls into different rooms . Minho exhaled and turned to Newt reluctantly.

"Dude, I have no freakin' idea how you just did that, but _… _respect."

Newt laughed, "I accept your lovin' apology! Just don't underestimate my power again…"

We decided that the best thing to do was just walk down the hall and look in all of the doors on the way – one of them had to be right – and as we did it, with Minho and Newt still bickering over Alby's shoulders and Karly whispering a rating under her breath for every male we passed, I suddenly felt a flash of affection for these guys. _Come on – you've barely even spent a day with them. _But, though I'd never been to high school and I was never going to get to– this was the closest I'd ever been to the things I'd spent hours dreaming about since I was seven. Just walking down a crowded hall, with absolutely no sense of direction, laughing and teasing each other 'cause there was nothing more important to do. It was actually quite a peaceful atmosphere - despite the chaos - until something so 'high-school cliché ' happened that it was sort of unbelievable.

"Hey loser! Watch where you're going!"

It was so like one of FJ's moron remarks that my head whipped around, but it happened so fast that nobody had time to move. An older looking guy with muscles like a wrestler, a black buzz cut and the menacing grin I'd seen on a million bullies back home, reached out and threw the boy who'd passed him across the hall, like the kid weighed no more than a feather. Karly screamed and Newt stepped forward to help but before he could react, the kid slammed into him with all the force of Buzz-Cut's Superman throw, sending him sprawling into a row of foldable blue plastic chairs that were lined up outside an office. The whole row went down like dominos, three or four landing on top of him with a crash as he fell.

"Oh my Gosh!" The kid – who had landed a few feet away – sprang up unhurt, horror plastered across his face. He took in Newt's grimace of pain as we helped him up and his admittedly intimidating height and the horror intensified. The boy ran over and tried to pick up one of the chairs across one of Newt's legs, all the while, spluttering panicked apologies.

"Oh my Gosh – I am _so sorry_, seriously – are you okay? Are you sure? Oh no, oh no, I'm am really _really _sorry, this is terrible – I knew I'd do something like this, my Mom told me I messed everything up - I'VE ONLY BEEN HERE THREE DAYS! I'm so, so sorry – are you alright?"

Newt rubbed the back of his neck and groaned.

"Yeah… Ugh, that hurts like a _mother_… Yeah, it's okay, I saw the bloody Neanderthal. I've had worse – plus, ya' hurt the chairs a little more than ya' hurt me, dont'cha think?"

We all looked across at the hall, which was now a sea of blue plastic – some of which I don't think could ever be bent back into shape again… The boy still looked guilty, despite the apology, and gave us a quavering smile.

"Probably… Thanks. I'm Gally, by the way - Gally Leonis – I'm thirteen. Can I, um, help you guys – consider it repayment for me almost crippling your friend?"

Newt snorted again and shook Gally's outstretched hand before introducing us all at a hundred miles an hour. "I told ya, kid, I've had way worse. Now, I'm not forcin' ya' or anythin' but, do ya' know where the Canteen is? We were sorta hopin' to get there before next week…"

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><p>The Canteen. Think about it. When I pictured that, I always pictured a tiny, grotty school hall with five tables. Lies – it's all lies. The W.I.C.K.E.D canteen was bigger than my whole backyard. There were at least fifty tables in there, with more than a hundred people milling around, eating, chatting, laughing. It looked so perfect, I half-expected Zac Efron to jump out of a closet and start doing a choreographed dance number on the tables. On entrance, we were each given a silver token, with 'W' embossed on it.<p>

"Food tokens" Gally told us. "They say we'll have different ones during training to match our body type, but for now we've all got these standard ones. It's just to make sure no-one eats like a pig."

Going into the huge Canteen had made us all realise just how hungry we were – the last thing I'd eaten was a cereal bar the night before – so we all headed over to the line of people at the food desk, hoping that the range of food was actually edible compared to the stuff on the train. Unfortunately, it became blindingly obvious as we got to the front of the line that the people at W.I.C.K.E.D were 99% scientist and 1% cook.

We stood there, looking at the five different coloured 'meals' – all a weird, liquefied mash with suspiciously shaped lumps floating in it – all looking at each other like, _you first! _Finally Alby spoke:

"Well, there's six of us… if we all try a different coloured gloop then _someone_ has to come with halfway average gloop…" He said it hopefully, his deep voice rising like a question.

"That's bloody awful thinking." Newt answered, eyeing the pinkish stuff closest to him, warily.

"It's not thinking," Minho laughed, "It's 'wild-guess-hope-we-don't-freaking-choke'-ing… Let's do it!"

Then, a whole lot of childish behaviour ensued – which I am not embarrassed to say I enjoyed – with everyone fighting over the six different colours:

"I'm having the red one!"

"No way, man – I _totally _called dibs on the red one!"

"Sucks for you!"

"You _cannot _leave me with the sludge coloured one guys – I hate you all!"

"Meh, I can live with the pain…"

Can I just say (as the storyteller, I am allowed to be biased), I totally won that. The sludge one tasted like raspberries – if you forgot about what you were actually eating. The red one was a complete let down, and Minho actually gagged (apparently it was pickle, but I'm not sure _anyone _would be that cruel). But when we'd all finished – after a lot of gloop sharing out and an unholy amount of tap-water – we all had tears pouring down our faces. Karly reached across me and punched Minho in the arm.

"Our first daring act at W.I.C.K.E.D. – Well done squad."

_Even now, looking back, that was one of the best days I can remember – 'cause it was all downhill from there._

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><p><strong>Hey everyone! I hope you all had a good weekend :)<strong>

**So, this is the chapter I wrote on Wednesday, but I decided to expand it into a longer chapter rather than just 700 words - which it was before :) I'm sorry - that meant that not much happened again, 'cause they're all still meeting each other, but Subject Bootcamp is starting next chapter (with a bit of a look at Newt's past...) , so there should be a bit more action!**

**Thank you all so much for your fabulous reviews and support - It makes me so happy!**

**Have a great week!**

**Star***


	7. Chapter 7- Eggshells and Early Mornings

_**I do not own TMR - The world/characters/central plot of Maze Runner belongs to James Dashner!**_

_**Warning - Child abuse and mild swearing in this chapter - If you don't want to read it, skip past the italics!**_

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><p><span><strong>Chapter 7 – Eggshells, Egos and Early Mornings<strong>

**Newt's P.O.V**

_Eggshells. 'We have to walk on eggshells' she tells me. I've spent three years trying to walk on them – desperately faking different smiles, cowering in different corners, being a thousand different people – but every time I hear the eggshells crack and shatter under my feet. I'm too pathetic, too clumsy, too __**big**__ to ever hide for long… yet I'm always too small to protect her._

"_For God's sake, stop bloody humming, boy!"_

_I'm ten years old, sitting at a table. He's across from me, a newspaper gripped in his weathered hands. She'd gone out, a scarf round her neck as she kissed me goodbye - but I saw the ugly blue-black stain across her jaw. She sang to me the day before, whispering the notes into my ear. I hadn't noticed I was humming them._ _**Stupid, stupid, stupid**_. _That will have been the first straw._

_I clamp my mouth shut, trying to breathe noiselessly as I always do, casting my eyes down to the floor. I feel his glare wash over me, then a tidal wave of relief as his paper rustles – he's gone back to it. Silent, I pick up my pencil and continue to scratch her face into the notepad. The clock in the corner is ticking quietly, the noise strangely reminding me of a time-bomb as his pages turn and my hand glides across the cream-coloured paper. My breathing returns to normal. But then the kitchen window slams shut and I can't help it – I jump up, sweeping all my pencils off the table with an almighty clatter. _

_A flash of terror, painfully familiar, rips through my chest as I hit the ground, pushing it all back as quickly as it fell, not apologising, not speaking - not doing anything else that could make him snap. And for a second, nothing happens; he sits there silently, looking at the paper – just long enough for a sliver of hope to slip into my mind, as it always does – but it's only ever a second. His chair scrapes across the floor as he stands, his face eerily calm, and brushes his hand across the table, scattering my pencils again, but I don't move this time. I'm not sure I can; the fear is coursing through my veins like superglue, fixing me in place. He takes a step towards me and my breath hitches in my throat, but all he does is pick up the sketchpad and stare at her image. He stares at it for the longest time, the unnerving composure still hanging on his face, but I don't relax. I'm wondering what he's thinking, what his plan is this time – I know he has one. But I don't have to wonder long. _

"_You're __pathetic.__" He sneers, slowly, deliberately ripping my drawing in half. It always starts with the sneering – trying to get me to react. I sometimes think he'd be happier if I did. _

"_She's been fillin' your buggin' head again, hasn't she? Fillin' it with __**music**__ and bloody __**fairy-stories**__, like that's gonna pay the bills! The rent's overdue but if we sing a bloody lullaby and draw a pretty picture then it's all gonna be okay, huh?" _

_His voice is rising. I hate those questions - those questions that never have a right answer. I play it safe and do nothing. Wrong. He slams his fist down hard on the table, making me flinch, as he takes another two steps towards me. I can smell the beer on his breath as he leans down._

"_Huh! You mute as well as lovin' brainless?!" I shake my head, taking a wary step backwards. The mask of calm is slipping. "Bloody hell! That woman'll be the death of me – singing like a choirboy and looking all nice n' pretty won't get you nowhere! Oh, you might buggin' worship her, boy, but that spineless harpy knows __**nothing**__! Nothing! She's a bloody coward - Do you hear me?!" _

_Oh, he knows my downfall. Again and again - I always do it and I always regret it – she always makes me regret it. I know that every time, but I feel that dangerous surge of pure anger for her and I do it anyway:_

"_She's not a coward!" I try to shout it, and my voice wavers. But that never matters to him. I'd said it, hadn't I? I'd challenged him. I don't care what he says about me – but he can't talk about her. He steps back then and a threatening grin slips onto his face. _

"_You know she is, the useless bitch – and you're just like her." I feel my hands curl into fists, even though I know that's what he wants. It's his excuse every time. He sees it and laughs – not her laugh, bright and musical, but dark and humourless. How is it possible to hate someone so much and be so pathetically terrified of them at the same time?_

"_Go on– hit me then, __**Daniel**__. Be a bloody man for once." _

_He spits my name at me, dripping with sarcasm. __**Daniel. '**__Daniel in the Lion's Den' – I never missed the irony. This is the person he wants me to be. Like him. I want to hit him– I look at him, his powerful hands and his dangerous smirk and I see her and her bruised jaw, I hear her crying and I want to so much it hurts. But I can't, so I do what I'm best at – I run from him. __**Coward…**_

_I turn my back on him and bolt into the next room. There isn't any point – the flat's ten floors up and the only door's behind him, but I never have a choice. All I get to pick is where it happens. I hear him thundering after me as I throw myself into the corner of my bedroom, my heart thumping in my ears. I haven't done anything, but then I never have. He hates me so much he doesn't need it. I curl up as small as I can, wrapping my arms over my head – She cries harder if he cuts my face. My breath is coming so fast that my head's spinning and all I can hear is my heartbeat as I wait for him. _

_He bursts in, the calm now completely shattered, shouting a barrage of abuse so loudly that I can barely pick out any of the words, before he descends on me. I hear his blow before I feel it, a dull echoing sound against my skull, and a split second later what feels like a grenade goes off above my left ear, making me gasp in pain. But there's no point in registering that. I screw my eyes shut and ignore the explosions across my body – my pain receptors just giving in completely as blow after blow hits me – I don't even know what he's doing anymore – kicking, punching, cutting – everything's just a blur of pain. Above the mist I can hear him screaming words like "PATHETIC!", "COWARD!", "SISSY!", "BRAT!", words that should hurt me, but they don't anymore. I'm numb._

"_Not so pretty now, are you, you little freak?!"_

_He kicks at my fingers and I hear something crack and an echoing sound like a slamming door. I'm pretty sure I'm passing out until I hear the running footsteps… __**oh please, no. **__I don't even have to move my hands to know that it's her – her normally soft voice echoes around the room, fiercer than I ever remember it._

"_DON'T YOU TOUCH HIM!" She runs into the room, her blonde hair falling around her face and her brown eyes black with fury. I want to tell her to run, that I'm okay, to get away from him, but my mouth won't open._

"_DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH HIM!" _

_He turns away from me and my heartbeat speeds right back up, faster than before. '__**Do something**__!' The voice in my head screams. But I can't. I'm paralysed watching them, as he towers over her, her fragile body looking even more delicate than ever. He looks down at her, the controlled, threatening expression back as his lip curls back in a sneer, his voice low and menacing:_

"_Who the bloody hell do you think you are?" _

_He raises his fist and pure terror flashes through her eyes as she throws her hands up to protect her face. All of a sudden, the pain and the fright and the anger build up in my throat as he draws back his fist._

_And I scream._

* * *

><p>I flew bolt upright in bed, breathing hard, the scream still caught in my throat. A single word kept resounding in my mind: <em>'Coward', 'Coward', 'Coward'… <em>

As almost always happened with me, my head hit the solid wood of the bunk above, the sharp stinging starting up and I swore under my breath. There was a second or two of total disorientation – I had absolutely no clue where I was – but then I saw Alby's face, hanging upside down in the air from the bunk above.

"Bloody hell!" I slammed back into the pillows with a hushed yell, "Don't _do_ that – ya' scared the undies off me!"

Alby would usually have made some smart-ass comment, but honestly, he seemed to be half-asleep, so he just yawned in my face.

"Ugh… Newt? You okay, man?"

"Oh…" _Had I screamed out loud?_ I really hoped not. I didn't come here to be Daniel. "Oh, yeah – ain't nothin' – just a buggin' dream. Go back to sleep."

He didn't take much persuading and pulled his head back into his bunk. I heard him snoring a few seconds later. _Lucky_, I thought. Wasn't much chance of me ever going back to sleep. My eyes flicked to digital clock on the side of the room – 05:30 AM. The people at W.I.C.K.E.D had told us that all the alarms went off at six, which was ridiculous. I was still so bloody jet-lagged that I could barely keep my eyes open, but as I had absolutely no wish to slip into another dream, I forced myself to start thinking about what had happened.

After I had so brilliantly helped us locate the Canteen and rubbed it in Minho's stupidly good-looking face for a while, it was getting late, so Gally took us all to the supplies room to check our names off a list. They gave us a hygiene kit – which other than the toothbrush and flannel, I have not examined yet – though judging by Jackson's pained screech of : "_Haven't these people heard of __moisturiser__!" _at half-past ten last night, the contents are pretty basic. Then we were given dorm numbers and assigned room-mates and told to 'retreat until the breakfast bell goes off.' Which we did do – though not before Minho had swapped dorm numbers with Karly (the scary blonde girl), I noticed.

_The girls… yeah. _That was going to be something that I had to get used to. Ordinary people were hard enough, but _girls._ I had no experience. Right then, I was just keeping out of their way – Mariella Curie had freaked me out and permanently damaged my eardrums enough for me to never want a relationship. For Minho however, they were all he could talk about.

"Dude – Did you see that blonde chick? I _know_ she's into me, her eyes never left me all the way around the canteen!"

"Maybe that's 'cause she was behind you in the dinner queue? And you stared at her chest the whole time we were eating?"

"It was fate, man! You're just jealous…"

Obviously, he thought the one girl – Karly – was the hottest thing since the Sun Flares. I didn't know him well enough (though I suspected I was going to) to know his type, but if I did, she'd be it. Confident strut, short skirt, impressive hair-cut and an apparently 'perfect' figure, she was basically the female version of him. It wasn't that I didn't like Karly – I did – but thanks to my sparkling, gentleman-like first impression, she was definitely wary and had said maximum six sentences to me since we'd got off the train.

The other girl, Lily, was from a totally different planet. Minho didn't think so much of her – he said her eyes were too far apart for her to be pretty. Personally, I didn't see it, but I guess he'd know. She'd plainly come from money – her accent would have been patronising if she hadn't been so nice after my whole I'm-in-a-bad-mood-let's-be-a-bloody-prat-to-everyone incident, and I thought Lily would be exactly the sort of person I hated. An arrogant, look-at-me, better than everyone else person, but she hadn't been. She was kind of quiet and had only spoken when she actually had something to say – but I'd only known these people a month and I'd already been labelled as a continuous talker, so she probably couldn't get a word in around my big mouth. And I'd _definitely_ been talking too much. Minho and Alby hadn't really noticed, but I saw her eyes when I'd slipped up with the singing thing. She saw it – and she wasn't stupid enough to let it go.

I looked across the room at the other five boys sleeping in the room and studied their faces, so I'd actually remember their names this century. The little kid, Winston, had been taken off with Gally and two kids called Jeff and Chuck. Lily had worked a buggin' miracle on the kid – when I'd tried to talk to him yesterday, he looked like he was torn between screaming and biting me, but she just gave the kid a hug and he shut up. Brilliant idea – I'd have done it myself back in France if I'd thought of it. But I guess hugs had been off my agenda for a while.

The trip itself had been absolute hell – to the point where I was actually questioning my sanity. The first week was the worst. I was alone with 'Black the Prat' who I was then forced to make conversation with, and his life is about as interesting as his name. When Alby got on, everything got a bit better. He seemed like the kind of guy I'd always wished for as a kid – a big brother. He was smart, built like a truck and was probably the most sensible of all of us. He came up with better ideas in ten seconds then I came up with in ten hours – as displayed by my new low: breaking out of the carriage idea. Okay, that was mainly based on the fact I was going nuts stuck in there, but had I not got my undies in a twist and listened to his idea (_stay in the carriage, we're almost there_), I would not have a bruise that looks like the London Eye and an equally bruised ego. Talking of ego's, Minho's appearance two weeks later was definitely something. He earned my eternal respect through his carriage entrance – he threw open the door, stalked in and yelled, "**Minho is in the building, everyone!**" looked around at our expressions and went, "**As you were!" **, before throwing himself down in front of me and Alby. He was also built like a truck (you see why I'm feeling left out here?) and smart. He also had a natural confidence that oozed out of every pore in his body – the guy _radiates_ confidence. Normally, I couldn't stand guys like that, but Minho was actually really funny and some of the plans _he_ has… Well, let's just say he might be the reason I need Alby.

I was just about to reach up and wake Al anyway when the alarm clock went off, giving me a minor heart attack and I fell back off the bed, with a thump. The air immediately filled with groans, blanket rustling and Minho moaning sleepily:

"When I'm the President, mornings are _freaking illegal…_"

"Yeah, Good luck with that!"

* * *

><p><strong>Hi everyone!<strong>

**Yep, I've done it again - taken up a whole chapter with something that was only supposed to be a hundred words! I'm so sorry - I uploaded this part because I didn't want to not update - especially after all of your fabulous reviews this week :) - but I am going to try to upload the rest of this chapter (Trials/Strength testing) between Monday-Wednesday :) - although that will be pretty short!**

**What did you all think of Newt's P.O.V? **

**Thank you to all of you who reviewed/followed/favourited ING! :) - I am still in shock that so many people are :) I love you guys so much! :) **

**Have a fantastic week!**

**Star***


	8. Chapter 8 - Superman and Evil Schemes

_**I do not own TMR - The world/characters/ plot of Maze Runner belongs to James Dashner! – No copyright infringement is intended!**_

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><p><em><strong>Chapter 8 – Strangers, Superman and Evil Schemes<strong>_

**Newt's P.O.V**

An hour of moaning, washing, dressing, teasing, whinging, moisturising - and in some cases, just bloody panicking – later, I found myself back in the Canteen queue lining up for what was supposed to be breakfast. Everything was a bit quieter than it had been the night before, but the atmosphere was charged with excitement – _everyone_ was buzzing. We'd bumped back into the girls at the Canteen entrance (well, _bumped – _Min made us stand at the end of the corridor looking 'casual' until they arrived, to Alby's disgust), so the six of us were all squashed up together in the middle of the line, trying to guess what madness they were going to put us through next.

Lily – the brunette girl – was standing next to me, her long dark hair pulled back in a loose ponytail as she bounced up and down at my side. She was balanced unsteadily on her toes, craning her neck to try and see out of the huge bay window opposite us. I glanced down at her (and with the giraffe height I was trying to rock at the time, it was a bloody long way down), looking more closely than I had the night before. The girl was tiny – my Ma would've called her bird-boned – with sharp amber eyes that darted around the huge hall, flicking from person to person, trying to take in everything at once. Her arms were wrapped tight around her stomach and a slight frown creased her forehead. I bumped into her lightly with my shoulder:

"Hey, you that hungry?"

Lily jumped, snapping out of her daze suddenly and looked up at me with a slight smile.

"After last night? I don't think I _ever_ want to eat again!" She glanced down at her position then and laughed. "Oh! No, I'm fine – Just a bit nervous about today, I guess…"

Then it was my turn to laugh. I pointed up the queue at Alby and Minho who were having a heated debate under their breath (I think it was over football or something) then looked very deliberately at myself.

"Excuse me, _you're _buggin' nervous? Have you seen those guys? I'm gonna get crushed in _whatever _we do today."

She smiled again and shook her head at me, "I don't think so – come on, you've gotta have at least a foot on both of them!"

"Yeah, probably, but I'm a walking stick insect – I have no strength _at_ _all_. Every bloody centimetre I've got on them, they've got about five pounds on me! Plus I think that kid yesterday didbuggin' cripple me – _everything_ hurts!"

Lily raised her eyebrows at my metaphor (William Shakespeare, eat your heart out) and nodded, in what seemed to be agreement – which I was sort of offended by (she wasn't supposed to _agree _with me) – but then she held out one of her own stick-thin arms with clear irritation on her face.

"Hmm, okay, but you're looking at the girl who hasn't even been _outside_ for five years – I've got to have some kind of Vitamin D deficiency by now. We can die together!"

She tried to bump back into me with her shoulder jokingly, but it was like a pixie trying to hit a tree – she just hit my ribcage – which made her sigh noisily in mock annoyance and order me to bend down so she could do it properly. '_I know I'm a midget, but you don't have to rub it in!' _I started to laugh and was about to come up with some brilliantly hilarious comeback (probably) when we reached the end of the queue.

I was instantly confused. Yesterday, everything had been laid out in huge metal bowls on a long table and – though we could've been eating shredded paper for all we knew – we could see it all, we had a screwed up idea of what it was. Today however, all that was on the table was fifteen jugs of milk and a series of brightly coloured boxes with tacky lettering splattered across them. I turned to ask Lily about it, but she'd already sorted herself out and was way ahead of me with Karly. Now don't get me wrong – I'm not _stupid_, I can _**read**_ - but while everybody else was walking along the line, picking up the nasty packages like they knew exactly what was going on, I was staring at them trying to guess from the brand names what was supposed to be in the boxes – it was completely alien. Just when I'd decided I was going to have to resort to yesterday's plan and pick whatever was closest, the kid behind me – a short guy with dark skin and thick black hair – tapped my shoulder and pointed to a simpler box on my left.

"That one," He told me, a friendly grin on his face, "It's pretty plain, but you can add stuff if you don't like it."

"Thank you," I exhaled and moved towards the box, flashing him a grateful smile as I poured the contents of it (little beige toast flakes) into a bowl. He laughed at my obvious relief, picking up some of the boxes for himself.

"You not used to all this then?" The boy gestured down the long table. I snorted:

"Ha! Nope - I lived on buggin' oatmeal back home."

The boy's face immediately contorted into an expression of pure horror, like that was the single worst thing that could ever happen to a person.

"Oh, you poor little _starving_ thing! How are you even _alive_?!"

His face was so totally aghast that I started to laugh again.

"I guess I'm tough– and it was pretty good oatmeal – Name's Newt, by the way."

I held out my hand as he tried to balance his bowl to shake it, before answering:

"You'd have to be! I'm Siggy Freud!"

"Nice to meet ya' – thanks for the help!" I called as I reached the end of the table and started to walk towards the others. He grinned back at me and yelled:

"Back at'cha – Good luck for today!"

_Bloody hell, was I gonna need it._

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><p><strong>8:30 – Lily's P.O.V<strong>

As soon as we'd all finished eating breakfast – and W.I.C.K.E.D seemed to have just given in that day and shipped in a truckload of breakfast cereals – the usual workers stalked into the Canteen and sorted us into our lines. Everyone walked in excited silence down another twenty identical corridors before being taken down in groups of four in a steel-framed lift (they'd obviously learnt from the revolving door incident). When everyone had arrived on what seemed to be the ground level we were lead to a huge set of double doors. Ava Paige – who just seemed to always be there – stepped out in front of them.

"Good morning, kids!" She paused for us all to echo her, "I'm glad you're all learning your way around and enjoyed your first evening here at W.I.C.K.E.D. I hope you're all making lots of new friends! This room behind me is the training room and although you aren't going to start your testing there today, you will all become very familiar with it. Once you all settle yourselves, the Chancellor will tell you what your initial tasks will be. After that, you will be taken in larger groups to the various activity centres –"

"_Providing they don't freaking ditch us again.._." Minho hissed loudly, which made Ava Paige flush and look slightly uncomfortable.

"Um, no – Well, anyway, as I was saying, you will be taken to your activity centres and expected to perform as well as you can- you all work at your own pace. However, anyone who deliberately does not perform to their best ability at this stage _will_ receive punishment."

_Punishment? _ _What did __**that**__ mean? _Hushed whispering broke out, but we were all silenced by a deafening creaking noise as the double doors swung open and the W.I.C.K.E.D workers beckoned us through.

Everyone's jaw dropped. If we thought the Canteen had been impressive, this room was off the scale. It was enormous – easily forty foot up to the ceiling – and then the length of one and a half football pitches to boot.

If I said the words 'Training Centre' to you, what would you think? I'll give you a couple of seconds to think about it. Well, I can guarantee, anything you just thought – weapons, weights, knots, climbing ropes, creepy holograph images and surveillance cameras – it was all there, times a hundred. It was like a scene from one of the crazy sci-fi films my Dad used to make me watch.

And the people – the _noise_ – there were people everywhere. There were a ton of W.I.C.K.E.D workers again, trying to line us up quietly to listen to the Chancellor, but they had to scream at the tops of their voices to even get people to look their way, over the wave of chatter that was crashing through the hall. There must have been at least three hundred people in that room, with every height, ethnicity, build, character that was humanly possible – and we all seemed to be between the ages of about five and eighteen. _Weird_.

The Chancellor was there again, standing on a platform with some other people in business suits and two tiny looking kids with clipboards and sharp eyes. I watched him snap his fingers at the nearest suit man, who whispered something to an attendant and pressed a huge red button set into the black steel wall. The air suddenly filled with a horrible screeching sound, like nails scraping down a chalkboard and everyone's hands flew to their ears in a vain effort to protect themselves from the pain. The Chancellor just stood there, watching us all yelp and writhe around for a while, a distressed expression painted on his kind-looking face, before he finally snapped his fingers again and the horrendous noise cut out.

It took a couple of seconds for everyone to stop reeling and to pull their hands away from their ears, so the Chancellor immediately jumped in with a smiling welcome.

"Good morning, children! I am incredibly sorry we had to resort to that particular measure of noise control – it was the only option you left us. Do not worry – the ringing sound you can all hear will wear off in a couple of minutes! It shouldn't affect your performance today. Now, you are an intelligent group, so I am sure you have realised that all of you that are being considered to participate in the Trials are in this room now. The final number that will actively take part will be about one-hundred-and-twenty; so the rest of you will be Cut at various stages in the process leading up to the Trials themselves."

He said 'Cut' like it was capitalised. Karly shot me a worried look and I saw Newt lean forward to whisper something in Alby's ear. Minho and Gally's eyes were still fixed on the Chancellor, waiting for him to explain. He didn't.

"But none of you need to worry about that at the moment. Today is a day that is all about **you**! Celebrate; show off your prowess, all of your incredible talents-"

Newt caught my eye and mouthed: '_What __incredible talents__?' _ I rolled my eyes, shaking my head at him. _Pessimist. _

"-all of the aptitude and ability we will come to expect from each and every one of you across the next year or so. This opportunity will come in the form of a series of tasks; two of which will commence today. One of the tasks will not actually take place in here. You will be lead outside to our state-of-the-art running track-"

Minho and a handful of others groaned.

"- where you will complete the set course in fifteen minutes if possible. The second task will be to strategically battle one of our meticulously constructed automatons. You will be issued with a name badge in order to be individually scored in both of these tasks and as your guides should have already informed you, slacking will _**not**_ be tolerated. Anyone who does not wish to take part in the process may leave through the doors behind you – anyone who leaves will not be granted re-admittance and will be dealt with accordingly. Good luck everyone – lunch is at 2:15!"

The Chancellor then turned and left the stage, taking the businesspeople and the two children with him. Then, as always seemed to happen whenever someone left a stage, two doors opened on different sides of the room. The first had sunlight streaming through it, raising the temperature in the crowded room immediately. The second lay behind us and the W.I.C.K.E.D workers standing there with clipboards and eagle stares waiting for anyone to 'wimp out' and be '_dealt with accordingly'_. There were some wistful glances at the doors as a platform that looked a little like a boxing ring rose up to the left of the crowd, whirring and clanking, but nobody moved towards them. I was impressed and frightened – not getting Cut was going to be harder than I thought.

* * *

><p>"All subjects numbers 1-25! I repeat, all subject numbers 1-25! Get over here!" A man with one of the biggest mouths I've ever seen was standing at the edge of the running track outside, red faced, yelling at the top of his voice and blowing a silver whistle around his neck at three second intervals.<p>

"He's enjoying that way too much…" The boy behind me laughed, "I think we're in this for the long haul, people."

"Mr Clinton!" Fish-Mouth shouted at him, "Put a sock in it – save your energy for the track!"

The boy coloured slightly and some of his friends sniggered as the man carried on screaming at some people trailing behind at the backs of the lines.

"We're all going to be Cranks by the time you lot get here – move it! Well, it's about time, isn't it? No mollycoddling around _here_. Now you've all got here before I've been fossilised, welcome to your first task; I am Mr Mathewson and I will be your assessor! You see this path?"

He pointed at a smooth track that twisted up into what appeared to be woodland (it had to be fake – there were almost no forests after the Sun Flares) and everyone turned their eyes to it, nodding. _Ugh, _I thought, _it has an uphill slope…_

"_That_, boys and girls, is your task. Get back here in fifteen minutes and you will receive at least 80 out of a possible 100 points! Any further points will be added depending on how close to death you are at the end! Now, does everybody understand or am I going to have to _repeat myself_?"

Everyone nodded again, some people muttered "_Sure". _The enthusiasm levels were down a bit now – some people, like Harriet, were bouncing up and down on the tips of their trainers, raring to sprint off, others looked bored and indifferent, their faces blank. And then there were the people like me, who just had pure liquid horror shining in their eyes. _Forget __close__ to dead, I was going to be dust on the floor…_

He held up a large air-horn with the words W.I.C.K.E.D painted across it.

"ON YOUR MARKS, SUBJECTS! GET SET! GO!"

Bang! We all took off, thundering down the dust track in a way that was absolutely mental. There could have been a massive cliff around that bend and nobody would have a clue, we'd all just fall off like suicidal sheep. Not that I was ever going to make it there, though – we'd only gone a hundred metres, lagging quite close to the back, when my lungs set on fire. I leaned across and whispered to Karly through breaths:

"Do you – think - there are – minus points?"

She didn't look much better; her tanned face was flushed already, her blonde and navy hair falling out of its intricate plait. She grinned though.

"Heck, yeah – I'll race you to 'em!"

I snorted before wincing and wishing I'd saved the breath. People on television made this look so easy! I tried to turn my mind away from my embarrassing inability to run more than two hundred metres without collapsing, and looked around. We were in about the middle of the pack, keeping a mile behind the human cheetahs, but there was a cluster of smaller children and clumsier people stumbling desperately along behind us, so I figured it could have been worse.

The woodland was becoming more obviously fake the longer we went on. If you concentrated hard enough (and believe me I was bored enough to) you could see that every fifth tree had a small white flower at its base with a bee buzzing around it and an identical branch sticking out – it was totally computer generated. For some reason, that really irritated me. If they wanted to measure our brains as people living in real cities then they could at least tell it like it is! I was just about to elbow Karly, to point this out to her silently – relying on crazy hand gestures – when she grabbed my arm, digging her red painted nails into my skin and dragging me back to a slower jog.

"I – am not – doing this." She gasped, "I don't care – if we fail – I'm literally - about to die!"

Although that was pretty much exactly what had just gone through my mind, I shook my head at her slightly and tried to pull her along with me.

"Come on, it can't be that much further – you saw the people in there – we need to finish!"

She shook her head right back, strands of hair flying around like loose threads.

"Don't care."

"_I _need you to finish."

"Nope – still don't care."

"We might get Cut!"

"We won't."

"Fish-mouth guy could kill us."

"I don't care!"

"The boys are beating us, Karl…"

Silence. She closed her mouth and peered down the track, frowning. When she looked back, there was a flash of challenge in her eyes.

"Hmm… No way! That jerk of a Korean guy would never let it go…" Karly spun away from me and took off up the track with a renewed energy, the idea of Minho beating her by half a mile spurring her on. I sighed and raced after her, trying not to trip over the computer simulated stones as I went.

"Hey - Wait for me, you ditcher!"

Just as I caught up with her, even more out of breath than I had been before the 'Road Runner' stunt, I heard a soft chuckle in my ear and a boy's voice laugh:

"That has got to be the buggin' girliest run I've ever seen."

I looked up to see Newt jogging beside us, his dark blond hair falling in his eyes as he jumped over the twisted identical vines on the path. He did it so easily, his breathing even and his words relaxed, that I would have been impressed if I hadn't been so offended.

"Shut up!" I reached across and shoved him, grinning when he tripped and stumbled a few steps. "And if you're so good, _Usain Bolt_, what're you doing back here?"

He snorted at my insult before waving at Karly, who was doing her usual man-scan, looking him up and down. She nodded and said: "Mm, get a grip Newton - I thought you could run way faster than freaking Superman up there!"

Following Karly's accusing finger, I could just about make out the hunched shapes of Minho and Alby through the dust haze being kicked up. Newt just gave Karly his typical lopsided grin and told her:

"Yeah, I could."

He wasn't boasting – it was a statement. He gestured up to where the buildings were coming back into sight again. "Thought I'd save my energy, rather than tearin' off like a full-gone Crank. I know how to bloody _run_, but I haven't got a buggin' clue how to fight an automaton-whatsit. I'm savin' my smarts."

Newt gave us a sidelong glance and took in our dishevelled appearances.

"Plus, it makes you pair look less pathetic if I run with you."

His eyes glittered with amusement as we gasped in anger, and he sprinted off, dodging people to avoid getting sliced by Karly's razor sharp nails. We watched his feeble attempt to escape and immediately ran after him, half furious, half laughing, jumping the vines and kicking stones until we heard a deafening whistle in our ears.

"AHH!" I jumped a foot in the air as Mr Mathewson appeared next to us, a stopwatch in his pudgy hand. I gasped again in surprise, as I realised we were back at the beginning of the track. Mr Mathewson begrudgingly gave us a half-hearted smile and held up the watch an inch from my face.

"14 minutes 59 seconds! Cutting it a bit close there, ladies. Nevertheless, well done – good luck in your next task. Your scores are 81 and 81."

"YES! I _knew_ we could do it!" Karly grabbed my hands and squealed happily, seemingly forgetting that she'd declared her death just five minutes ago. I squealed with her jumping up and down, until I caught sight of Newt over Karly's shoulder. He was standing a couple of feet away with Alby, a smug grin plastered across his face. _Oh…_ It dawned on me.

"So did he."

Karl turned to see who I was looking at and slowly got it too. She stalked over to him, wagging her finger disapprovingly.

"You _evil genius_, Newton!"

He started to laugh then and raised his hands in surrender, his eyes a light copper colour.

"Well, what can I say?"

I slapped his hand in a triumphant high-five, before turning to ask,

"Where's Minho?" Alby snorted and jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

Looking over at the rest of the subjects, about five had escaped with their normal appearances – the rest were in different stages of exhaustion, leaning on each other, sat on the floor guzzling water at a hundred miles an hour or leaning over with hands on knees, desperately trying to regain the air they'd lost whilst violently swearing under their breath – and those were the ones who'd _got _back. Minho, however, was lying spread-eagled on the grass at the side of the running track, moaning with his hands over his eyes.

"Oh." We walked across to him and Karly threw herself down on the grass with a bright smile, peeling his muscled arms away from his face. He groaned at us.

"Just kill me now…"

Alby reached down and pulled him up off the floor, handing him a water bottle, whilst Karly sang:

"Not a chance. Come on Superman, let's go fight some robots!"

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><p><strong>Hi everyone!<strong>

**Okay, first of all , I'm really sorry this has taken two weeks - I have a huge English Common Assessment (note the capital letters) coming up next week, so almost all of my time has been going into that! But, as an apology, this chapter is really long! :) **

**Second of all, I'm going to visit a relative next weekend, so the chapter might have to be up the next Tuesday/Wednesday instead! **

**I've had a lot of different POV requests over the last few weeks :) So, although Ch 9 will be from Lily's POV, the next one will be Minho's! :) Get ready for some trouble! **

**Thank you for the fantastic feedback/reviews, everyone! - You know I love those! :)**

**Have a fabulous week, guys!**

**Star* **


	9. Chapter 9 - Automatons and Irish Accents

_**I do not own TMR - The world/characters/ plot of Maze Runner belongs to James Dashner! – No copyright infringement is intended!**_

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><p><span><strong>Chapter 9 – Agony, Automatons and Really Irish Accents<strong>

When Mr Mathewson had screamed some more at the subjects who'd passed out and had got us all moving again, we started to trek back towards the central building.

"Appalling job, the lot of you! I'm fascinated – how hard do you kids have to try to be this useless?"

The boy next to me grinned. He was short with close cut black hair and bright eyes – his name badge read 'Clint' - one of the boys who had finished last. He leaned over and whispered:

"I'm actually _brilliant_ at being useless – I have it at an art form. It's literally _exhausting_ being this pathetic."

I laughed behind my hand but Mr Mathewson's head snapped round and he yelled:

"I'm not going to tell you again, Clinton! Shut your mouth – this is a training regime not a _slumber party!_"

Clint nodded and apologised, but as soon as the assessor turned his back, he rolled his eyes, making a big show of closing his mouth and zipping it shut. Despite Mathewson's violent threats, everyone trudged down the hill, chattering noisily until the group that was swapping activities with us came up the path. I stepped forwards to call out to Dmitri, who had been sorted into that set, when I suddenly saw the state they were in. The others saw it too and the chattering stopped dead.

"Bloody Hell…" Newt breathed.

"_Gordon Bennett_ – You can say that again!" Clint gave a low whistle, his grey eyes widening in surprise.

After the race, our team was not in the best of conditions but compared to Group 2, we looked like we'd just spent the week at a health spa. Some of the older boys – Nick and Borro – looked unhurt but the rest were a muddle of bandages, bruises and (in some cases) blood. Two bandaged girls were holding up a boy with a black eye, Dmitri was supporting Jeff (who was limping) and – when I looked closer – it seemed like almost half the group was missing. Alby broke the silence as they passed us, yelling out to the boys at the back.

"Hey Borro! Where's the rest of your team?" The lanky Scottish boy didn't even turn around, just called back over his shoulder:

"In the Infirmary!"

As soon as Group 2 was out of sight, the air erupted into terrified gibbering, the panicked looks that had disappeared from our faces making a speedy comeback. _What the heck is the_ _next task?_ Mathewson had obviously anticipated this because his face didn't even flicker at the mayhem. All he did was pick up a megaphone he'd pulled from somewhere and shout:

"OKAY SUBJECTS! STOP GAWKING AT THE MISFIT TOYS! You know why they look like that?!" Nobody answered. "Because they _**failed**_! They were pathetic and they _**failed**_! And unless you all _want_ a trip to the Infirmary and a zero score, you need to stop crying for your Mommies and man-up, 'cause you're heading the same way after your last shameful performance! NOW, COME ON – MOVE IT!"

_Reassuring… _Most of the group looked pretty irritated by this rant and I heard Minho crack his knuckles behind me as we carried on jogging, his exhaustion gone.

"Forget freaking machines, if that guy opens his mouth one more time, I swear I'm gonna smash it in!"

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><p>It was one o'clock when we all re-grouped inside the training room for the second task. To everyone's relief, Mathewson had marched back up to the running track to deafen Group 2 and we had been left in the hands of Ava Paige. She was standing in front of the steel platform with the three black columns that had risen out of the ground this morning and held a small remote control with the numbers 1-3 across it.<p>

"Hi, kids! Congratulations on your first task – I didn't expect so many of you to be here for the second one!" Ava gave a light laugh and looked at us to echo her. Nobody did. "Well, as you might have guessed from your meeting with Group 2, the second task will test your combat skills. Behind me there are three pillars – each one contains a different fighting machine. I promise you, they were all programmed to beginner levels and the machine you are assigned will depend on your age, height and build-"

I looked sideways at Newt and raised an eyebrow. He shook his head and mouthed, _'I have __no__ chance…"_ drawing a hand across his throat with a worried expression.

"- you have three minutes and will score seven marks for every hit you land on the machine. Your turn is automatically over when you fall or surrender. Be aware that the automatons have motion sensors and _will_ be aiming for you. The people you can see around the room will be watching your fighting style to determine your classes and trainers –"

There were two W.I.C.K.E.D workers positioned at each corner of the platform, all wearing white coats and tight lipped smiles. Next to Ava though, were two kids – older than Winston but younger than Gally – a boy and a girl. The boy looked at us warily from under a floppy brown fringe, his fingers clutching a silver clipboard but the dark-haired girl stood tall, staring openly at the group, her ice-blue eyes sizing us up, deciding what we were made of.

"- These two are Thomas and Teresa. They will become familiar and will get to know each one of you very well indeed over the next few years – the reason for their isolation from you will also become obvious during that time. They too will be analysing your performances today, as a mental challenge. Now!"

Ava clapped her hands together, "I wish I could tell you more but we need to see some impulsiveness in our Final Trial Subjects, so we need you all to display independence. Good Luck – The Challenge begins now!"

Ava Paige placed her hands on Thomas and Teresa's shoulders and led them away from the platform but their eyes never left us, even as they took their seats about ten metres away. A man's voice – deep and sharp – rang out from the speakers on the walls.

"Subject B3 – Harriet Beecher-Stowe."

Everyone's heads turned towards the tall, curly-haired girl standing at the edge of the crowd. She didn't look frightened – which was a miracle – but determination was painted across her face. The closest W.I.C. worker smiled, beckoning her onto the platform as Thomas stretched up to Ava Paige and whispered something in her ear. She nodded at him and pressed the final button on her remote.

"Advanced Level selected. Challenge commencing in Three – Two – One."

The air immediately filled with a creaking, whirring sound, metal on metal, as the second column rotated upwards. Harriet looked slightly worried now, balling her fists and rocking back and forth on her toes. Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, a gap appeared in the pillar, widening with every rotation until something stepped out. When Ava Paige said 'machine', my first thought had been 'WALL-E' (you know – that ancient Disney film with the sweet robot?). Yep – it was nothing like that.

The automaton looked like a shopping mall mannequin but made out of titanium rather than plastic. It had a _face_. The second I saw it, I knew it was going to play a starring role in every nightmare I was going to have for the next five years. The bulletproof face was expressionless, its eyes black as coal with motion sensors flashing red behind them. From the neck down, it consisted of steel framing and plates, fused together but little metal spikes and studs stuck out along the arms at three centimetre intervals, glinting under the glaring lights of the training hall. Its hands were modelled on a human, with curved fingers and thumbs, but its nails were those of a catwalk model – long and sharp and deadly to anyone within a five metre radius. It didn't have legs – just a silver metal block that kept the thing hovering about ten centimetres off the platform.

_Wow. Dad would love this_, I thought,_ and he'd be able to tell me exactly where its weaknesses, blind spots and malfunctioning points are in maximum twenty seconds. _He'd always been fascinated with how anything worked, but machines were his favourite. When I was little, he used to take me out on FJ's Dad's tractor and we'd ride along the canal, calling out to the farm workers and the animals until the sun went in and it started to get dark. When we got home, Mom would run to the door and yell, "Where have you _been, _Jeremy!" but she'd always be laughing. She always knew where he was – until the day she didn't. Not for the first time in the last four years, I missed him so much that it hurt.

Harriet's brown eyes narrowed and she took a careful step back as a buzzer sounded, signalling the start of the task. The automaton lifted its metal head slowly, the motion sensors flicking from side to side to work out her location but Harriet wasted no time. She launched forwards on the balls of her feet, slamming her fist into its side – everyone cheered and a scarlet seven flickered onto the wall next to the timer. Harriet, spurred by the score, ran in again but the machine had logged her position and threw out a metal arm to stop her. She crashed into it with a gasp but, incredibly, didn't fall. Flying backwards, Harriet somehow got her feet underneath her and used the momentum she'd fallen with to propel herself forward, dodging under its arm to hit the thing in the neck. Its head snapped back but the metal nails sliced through the air in defence, slashing at her stomach. Harriet cried out in pain – it had obviously found its target - but even then she didn't give up. She jumped to avoid the spike it swiped across the floor to trip her but landed a second early and smashed her feet into it, bending the silver metal and scoring five more sevens on the board. Sonya Sarandon started jumping up and down and cheering:

"Go on Harri!" Harriet smirked but she didn't turn her head towards the sound, keeping her eyes focused on the automatons, watching its titanium arms flashing through the air as she ducked and weaved behind it. Alby's mouth was hanging open as we watched.

"Ain't she amazing?" He said to nobody in particular. The W.I.C.K.E.D workers standing to my left seemed to agree as they scribbled notes on their clipboards.

"Her speed and strength levels are extremely impressive for someone of her age."

"Evidently. Her confidence levels are running a little too high though – she was raised in a very dangerous area of the country – I think fighting is her first instinct. She could struggle in the Sense Tests."

"Mmm, yes. We'll have to keep an eye out for that."

Nobody was surprised when Harriet reached the end of the Trial without falling and with a phenomenal score of 119. She was practically pulled off the platform by her friends who all slapped her on the back, cheering and shouting until the deep voice rang out again.

"Subject B4 – Sonya Sarandon. Intermediate Level Selected. Challenge commencing in Three – Two – One."

Sonya – who was tall, but even skinnier than I was – scrambled up onto the platform looking absolutely terrified. She glanced backwards at Harriet who smiled and gave her a thumbs up, before trying to paste a determined expression on her face. When the thing finally came at her, she ran forwards as Harriet had done but she hesitated for a second before aiming her blow. Big Mistake. The automaton located her instantly and smashed its metal spikes into her left shoulder. Sonya shrieked in pain as the spikes pierced her skin but she lashed out wildly, hitting a glancing blow to its stomach – the crimson seven flashed up on the opposite wall. She sprinted back to the edge of the ring and kicked out at the machine, her feet making contact with the things right arm.

"I think she's getting it…" Clint whispered. Unfortunately, he spoke too soon. The automaton thrust out a metal pole from the block supporting it and swept Sonya's feet out from under her. We all gasped in dismay as she fell to the ground with a surprised cry and landed hard on her wrist. The buzzer went off, meaning that her turn was up – she'd fallen. But judging by the way she was holding her arm, she couldn't have carried on anyway. Two men in white and green uniforms ran in with a medical kit and led her to the side of the room, congratulating her on her 21 point score. I looked around the room for the next person to face the machine before realising in horror –

"Subject B5 – Lilianne Pasteur. Intermediate Level Selected."

_Intermediate level?! I can't even punch a butterfly! (_Not that I ever would, by the way_)I can't do this, I can't! _My head started going into overdrive until Karly pushed me up onto the platform, squeezing my hand.

"Come on Lil – Sock it to 'em!"

_Sock it to 'em? _ But before I could even panic long enough to ask her what to do the voice came through the speakers again.

"Challenge commencing in Three – Two – One."

_Okay, Lily. Get a grip. _The buzzer sounded and the automaton started to glide towards me, its spikes popping out of the metal with a whirring noise. The motion sensor fixed on me, while I stood there paralysed, and one silver arm swung out to deliver a knock-out blow. I yelled in pure panic and ducked, throwing an arm up to bash it away. The beeper sounded and I saw a seven flash up on the wall as my hand made contact with the cool metal. _Yes. You can do this. _

"Come on Lil!"

I didn't even know who that was as I dodged its next blow, feeling a sharp, tearing pain as the spikes cut into my cheek. I threw myself behind it, trying to anticipate its next move, but for a second it froze. _What? _Confusion fogged up my brain and I could hear the same echoes of bewilderment coming from the subjects. Why wasn't it beating the daylights out of me? A red light swivelled on the opposite wall and I got it- The motion sensor! It couldn't see me! If I could disable it, even for a second, I could confuse the horrible thing long enough for me to really bash it up. I tried to spin under its next stroke but it cuffed me hard across the ear, sending me stumbling towards the edge of the platform. For a second, I thought I was going to be forced to crowd-surf across the huddle of subjects below but I jolted myself away just as the people at the front started to look worried.

_Argh!_ The violence of the move sent me careering straight back towards the thing, with no way of stopping, so I flung my arms out violently and aimed for the eyeballs. The automaton slammed into me painfully, taking my breath away, but I'd done it – I felt the smooth glass under my knuckles and I saw the red lights behind it flicker and swirl. This was the only chance I was going to get. I attacked it with all of the pent-up frustration of the last few days - _This is for __Mom__ and __Dad__ and __Winston__ and __Dmitri__ and __Jeff__ and __Sonya__- _kicking and punching at it, spinning around in the best circle I could to keep it confused, all the while hearing the points racking up on the wall – _**14,21,28,35.**_ But I could only confuse a high-tech million dollar, top of the range, custom made automaton for so long. Just as the clock on the wall bleeped a minute left, the titanium spike swept across my knees, slicing them up and the hand smashed into my forehead sending me sprawling to the floor as the buzzer sounded.

Now, some people – like Min or Alby or Harriet – might have been disgusted with my 'average' score of 49 but inside, _**I**_ was doing a happy gymnastics routine. I didn't care that I'd scored seventy points lower than Harriet – I was just ecstatic that I hadn't got knocked out or failed or died!

"Well done, Miss Pasteur." The W.I.C.K.E.D worker gave me my very own tight-lipped smile as I walked towards the platform edge, limping on air. "A cunning start."

I treated him to a full-blown smile as I sat down on the steps, trying to catch sight of Alby (who was next) to wish him luck – not that he was going to need it.

"Nice one, Lilypad." Newt reached up a hand to help me down from the platform, flashing a crooked grin. I jumped off and rolled my eyes.

"Don't even _think _about calling me that, Lizard Boy…" He snorted as if to say _'that's the best you could do?' _

"Great job," Clint appeared next to me, dabbing at my face with a towel he'd begged off the medics, "I reckon the floor really needed that hug."

"Hey!" I growled angrily at the pair, punching Clint in the shoulder. He pulled away looking mortally wounded. "And you're going to pound yours into the ground then, Mr Clinton?"

He smirked back, "Naturally!" before grimacing and rubbing the back of his neck.

"Ach, who am I kidding? I've got a snowballs chance in the Scorch against that thing!"

Newt suddenly made a noise of frustration bringing my gaze back to him. He was looked at Clint with his brown eyes narrowed, frowning and chewing a fingernail as he did so. Clint looked puzzled and slightly worried:

"What?"

Newt sighed and stopped biting his nails, but the frown didn't disappear.

"Ugh! You've got an accent…. I should know it!"

He was right. I hadn't noticed this morning but Clint did speak with a burr that wasn't even slightly familiar to me – though it obviously was to Newt. Clint just laughed.

"So have you – you're a London lad, ain't you?"

Newt's eyes lit up like he'd just found his new best friend.

"You can tell? Nobody else has."

"Aye – sure I can. My Pa spent twenty years there as a lad! He said you never forget the way you all talk!"

Now it was Newt's turn to laugh: "And what's _that_ bloody supposed to mean? I've got it anyway, you're Irish!"

"Sure – Dublin, you ever been?"

"No. I _love_ the music though – my Ma knew every folk song going!"

"Ach, you should've heard my Pa's violin – he could wake the whole town in half an hour!"

Just then Minho walked up behind them and rolled his eyes at me, circling his finger next to his head and pointing at the other two.

"Okaaay, now you pair have finished being freaking geography nerds, take a look up there."

Minho slung his arms around the necks of the other boys (impressive, considering the height difference) and pointed up at the stage where Alby was stepping down, a towel around his neck.

"You're up, N."

"Oh, bloody hell…" Newt groaned and stepped out of Minho's headlock as the words "**Subject A5 – Isaac Newton. Advanced Level Selected**" echoed around the hall. Just before he climbed the platform steps, Newt looked back at us with a mocking grin.

"Well, it's been nice knowin' you all! Thanks for being my friends."

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><p><strong>5:00 PM<strong>

In the end, it was Alby who won the day, with his killer score of 175. His fighting style was one that nobody else dared to try and it paid off. Rather than wasting his energy and entertaining motion sensors, he just stayed stock still, like a rooted tree and just punched the thing, over and over and over again, ducking occasionally when the spikes came his way, but he just kept going like that for the _whole three minutes_. The W.I.C.K.E.D workers behind us were very impressed.

"Interesting – he isn't at all intimidated by it, is he?"

"No. And surprisingly, it has no connection to his life whatsoever. Make sure you put it on file and list him – Alby Einstein. A4"

When his score came up on the wall, everybody cheered and tried to slap him on the back – even Min, though he was a bit of a sore loser. Minho's style was sort of similar – it was all offence, no defence. He just threw himself around, backwards, forwards, sideways, kicking and punching as he went, spinning around the machine until everyone watching felt dizzy. He looked like a full-gone Crank but whatever his medal-winning Dad had taught him worked. His score was an impressive 147.

Newt on the other hand, had a totally different approach to everybody else. Rather than going for the automaton, his method was all evasion. He dodged and jumped, bending over backwards at times to avoid the swinging arms, each time he ducked he hit the floor twice as fast as the others had. Like Alby, Newt had the motion sensor figured out too and kept behind it when he aimed, knocking its head forward every time. But although he lasted the full three minutes, his defence method meant his score was only 77 – judging by the massive grin on his face when he jumped back down though, he wasn't exactly disappointed. And neither were the W.I.C.K.E.D workers.

"Wow – Remarkable. That kid's fast."

"Mmm, yes . He knows it too – particularly with a height like that, it's his only advantage. He has no upper-body strength at all."

"Powerful legs though."

"Well, yes - very actually. But that's understandable with his background."

"His right ankle's weak – but that's background again isn't it?"

"Yes. List him too – Isaac Newton. A5"

* * *

><p>Clint had done all right – 63 marks, and Karly had been thrilled with a 56. The only real disaster was Gally, who just stood there like a rabbit in the headlights until the machine punched him in the head. He left on a stretcher. So, we'd escaped less damaged than Group 2, but its safe to say that, as we walked back to the common room, everyone was exhausted.<p>

Alby took on the fatherly role as we slogged down the actually very pretty track, everyone leaning on each other.

"Well done today guys – we've shown them we ain't a bunch of sissies. Everyone was brilliant – we've just got to keep that up for a while, okay?"

Minho slung an arm around Alby's shoulders with a teasing smirk: "Actually, I think _**I**_ was spectacular today. I mean, _brilliant_ doesn't quite cover it – "

He broke off as Alby swatted him around the head and Newt shoved him with a grin: "Pompous prat."

We'd only gone a few more yards when the trees opened up into a clearing and we could see a gorgeous lake, with flowers and birds resting on the surface and water that was _way_ too blue to actually be real (but in my exhausted state of mind, I was prepared to let it go).

"Woah." Karly breathed and I was about to agree with her when I noticed she wasn't looking at the lake – she was looking above it. I followed her gaze and nearly screamed – suspended above the lake were two ropes, one above the other, and picking their way across it was what looked like Group 7. Every couple of seconds, someone would lose their balance and dive off into the waters below.

"That looks horrible" She shuddered. "I hate water – it messes up my highlights."

Alby nodded. "I think that's us on Thursday – it tests our balance and swimming ability."

"Ah, that's a piece of Canteen pie!" Minho bragged as we started walk again. He sprang up onto the railing and spread his arms, making his way down it, one foot after the other. "I have perfect balance."

Just then, one of the, uh, _heavier_ subjects on the rope decided they'd had enough and cannonballed into the lake below, making a noise that sounded like a bomb going off – we all jumped a foot in the air. A loud thump sounded next to Alby. Minho was sprawled on the grass rubbing his head, wearing the expression of an irritated child. Alby – being the nice guy he was – pressed his lips together in an effort to hide his smile:

"Uh, what was that about 'perfect balance', Min?"

To Minho's disgust, everyone started to laugh, clinging on to each other and wishing we had a video camera. Of course, it was only made more hilarious by Min's cries of "It isn't funny! It isn't!"

Suddenly, Newt grabbed hold of my shoulder, pulling me down and I looked across. He was doubled over, his head thrown back and was making one of the strangest noises I've ever heard. It was a frightening mix of gasping, wheezing and screeching all at the same time. Pure horror crossed Clint's son-of-a-medic face and he ran across to Newt, already talking at a million miles an hour:

"Okay people, back up, back up – give the guy some space! He's choking! Ach, I know how to do this!" He said, wringing his hands, "I know I do! You have to clear the airways, so I have to stand behind him and then you have to-"

He broke off as the noise changed and Newt started wildly waving his arms in Clint's face.

"I'm not –I – I'm not bloody –ch-choking!" He spluttered, "Stop-Stop! I'm – I'm laughing, you lovin' blockheads! Back up yourself – I'm okay!"

Everyone stopped moving and looked at him. I pulled him up off the grass and shook my head:

"You crazy Crank, you - He was about to do the Heimlich manoeuvre!"

"I _**know**_!"

Karly snorted then and punched him in the arm. "Man, there is something seriously wrong with you Newton. _Seriously. _That was like some kind of dying cow noise."

He straightened himself up and grinned again – It was obviously a trait he knew well and was willing to make fun of:

"_Dying cow noise' -_Well, I don't know about all of you lot - I know I never finished school, but I reckon I missed the how-to-laugh part of primary!"

Everybody smiled again as we finally reached the doors of the common room, weak with laughter, hunger and exhaustion and Newt slapped Clint on the back:

"I'm sorry I gave ya a buggin' heart-attack, man. I guess we're all just a little bit weird."

"Whoa, that's okay" Clint grinned "I can do **weird**. Just **never** do that in the middle of the night!"

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><p><strong>Hi everyone!<strong>

**Wow - mega chapter :) I looked for a way to split this one up into two, but there wasn't really any way to do it (I'd just end up with two filler chapters) so I hope you guys enjoyed it! **

**I actually have two questions for you all today:**

**1) I've been doing a lot of chapter/P.O.V planning this week but there was one I kept getting stuck on. When/if I do a Newt/Lily first-kiss fluff chapter whose P.O.V would you prefer it from? (Newt or Lily?) I'm leaning towards one but I'm not certain.**

**2) Do you guys like all of this before the maze stuff? I always felt like I need this part but it is quite long - I've been exploring the characters and introducing them and their relationships to each other, and I know that its the actual Maze and the Trial stories that you all fell in love with and I really don't want this to story to get boring :) So I'm sorry if I'm being paranoid :) But thanks for reading my paranoid question :)**

**I've had some amazing PM's and reviews this week - thank you so much, I love you all :)**

**Have a fabulous week everyone!**

**Star***


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